[Rachel Rose]

Schlock is an English word of Yiddish origin meaning "something cheap, shoddy, or inferior (perhaps from German Schlag, Yiddish shlak, meaning 'a stroke')".

In the field of science, "schlock" refers to shoddy methods or unreliable results. In art, "schlock" is sometimes used as a synonym for kitsch.






Okra (bhindi/(വെണ്ടയ്ക്ക) may very well be a vegetable but the snotty interior has demoted it to schlock in my estimation.

Also, ew friggin' ick.

[Poohbah (Gsq)]

My mum used the word 'beset' in a text message to me today. I have congratulated her for it, because I don't think it's oft used these days.

[Mr Phil]

Today's word: enow

It means 'enough'.

As in:

Quote

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss;

spoken by Henry V on the eve of battle (according to Shakespeare). Meaning "if we're going to die tomorrow, there are enough of us that it would be a loss to our country".

He's just overheard his lords muttering about being outnumbered by the French by 5 to 1, and he gives a rousing speech about victory against such odds being more glorious (particularly individual glory, being shared among fewer soldiers), and anyone who wishes the odds weren't quite so unfavourable may as well go home.


[Edit to add more detail]

This post has been edited by Mr Phil: 21 January 2012 - 08:40 PM

[Lethal Biddle]

Schlock is a pretty common word in English vernacular is it not? I've used it countless times.

So is beset!

Enow is a good one... I say good one, it's not much used, but it sounds a bit shit in most contexts. Needs some quite specific usage.

Lachrymary (tearful)! That's a good one! Or uliginous (smooshy)!

This post has been edited by Lethal Biddle: 24 January 2012 - 01:15 PM

[Rachel Rose]

We are from different cultures, Mr. Biddle. The nearest Yiddish community in my area is only minutes away but I don't interact with any of them. The last time I heard someone use the word schlock was a in a Mel Brooks film. I have never heard anyone use the word beset aside from literature. The same with enow.

I have, however, heard someone use the term lachrymose in the last two weeks. Close enough.

Uliginous is completely new to me. I'd have to say it is the most unique word in this thread only because I haven't heard it before. Ever.

Sometimes, when I tell Americans, particularly young people, that I am a bit DAFT, I'll have to explain the meaning.

And you do seem to often brandish vocabulary with a fanciful flourish, Elliot. (It is a truly fetching quality, by the way.) For example, you may use the word blunderbuss with great regularity and most of your friends will know the term. If I told classmates in Minnesota that the bad guy in the movie I saw last night used an antique blinderbuss to kill seven people, the standout word would be blunderbuss. I would have to define that one word even though they'd understand everything else.

What is unique to one culture or even one individual is not necessarily unique to another.


Viraginity-heroic or masculine qualities in a virginal woman.

[Lethal Biddle]

Rachel Rose, on 24 January 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

We are from different cultures, Mr. Biddle. The nearest Yiddish community in my area is only minutes away but I don't interact with any of them. The last time I heard someone use the word schlock was a in a Mel Brooks film. I have never heard anyone use the word beset aside from literature. The same with enow.

I have, however, heard someone use the term lachrymose in the last two weeks. Close enough.

Uliginous is completely new to me. I'd have to say it is the most unique word in this thread only because I haven't heard it before. Ever.

Sometimes, when I tell Americans, particularly young people, that I am a bit DAFT, I'll have to explain the meaning.

And you do seem to often brandish vocabulary with a fanciful flourish, Elliot. (It is a truly fetching quality, by the way.) For example, you may use the word blunderbuss with great regularity and most of your friends will know the term. If I told classmates in Minnesota that the bad guy in the movie I saw last night used an antique blinderbuss to kill seven people, the standout word would be blunderbuss. I would have to define that one word even though they'd understand everything else.

What is unique to one culture or even one individual is not necessarily unique to another.


Viraginity-heroic or masculine qualities in a virginal woman.

Pish & poppycock oh flibbertigibbit!

I don't know anyone from a what I would consider a Yiddish community. But then, by that I think strictly Orthodox Hasidic. I actually know a fair few Jewish people but faith seldom comes up & I frequently forget about it. Most of my "knowlege" or exposure to Jewish culture is from schlocky American pulp films or sitcoms (see what I did there?). Mel Brooks indeed! And since much of that would have a viewer believe in Jewish language & community playing a very large part in New Yorker culture & New York itself being the heart of the U.S, it always seems natural, to most English I think, that America be more aware & have absorbed more in the way of Jewish language & traditions than us.

I'm also VERY fond of a virago ... Excluding beards... and vestigial penises & things like that.
But there's certainly something truly captivating about a woman who's handy in a punch-up.

This post has been edited by Lethal Biddle: 24 January 2012 - 03:02 PM