Wednesday Word: Copacetic

copacetic |ˌkōpəˈsetik| (also copasetic)adjective informalin excellent order.ORIGIN early 20th cent.: of unknown origin.

If you asked me I would've guessed it had something to do with medicine. Or maybe poisons.

Vintage Monday: Uhm...

I'm not surprised someone--and I bet it was a man--invented this. The seventies were interesting times.

Wednesday Word: Canard

canard |kəˈnär(d)|noun1 an unfounded rumor or story : the old canard that LA is a cultural wasteland.2 a small winglike projection attached to an aircraft forward of the main wing to provide extra stabilityor control, sometimes replacing the tail.ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from French, literally ‘duck,’also ‘hoax,’ from Old French caner ‘to quack.’

I think I learned this word from television, but I don't remember the details. I wonder if it was from Cosmos.

Vintage Monday: Sock it to Me

Monday man candy. To be honest, I'm not impressed with the socks.

On at totally unrelated note (yeah, right), I've been noticing that the makers of Game of Thrones are making an effort to include more male nudity. I approve.

Blog-docking

A little while ago fellow author, Elaine White asked me to write a guest post for her blog. For topic she suggested explaining why I write m/m.  This is a question I've asked myself a few times so I jumped at the opportunity. The resulting blog post turned out rather academic in tone, yet it comes with a warning and an R rating. I'm rather proud of myself to have pulled that off.

Wednesday Word: Niff

niff (nɪf)

n

1. a bad smell

vb (intr)

2. to smell badly; stink

[C20: perhaps from sniff]

ˈniffy adj

'Nuff said.

Vintage Monday: Gentleman

Recently as I was pontificating about the use of depth of field and aerial perspective in cover design, I came to the realization that the concept of depth of field didn't exist before photography. If you look at paintings of fine renaissance artists you'll see how far off landscape has the same detail as figures in the foreground—because that's how our brains translates the world to us.

The photo of this dapper gentleman also illustrates another photographic concept: motion blur, as illustrated by the horse-drawn carriage in the middle ground.

Wednesday Word: Gelignite

gelignite |ˈjeligˌnīt|nouna high explosive made from a gel of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose in a base of wood pulp and sodium orpotassium nitrate, used particularly for rock blasting.ORIGIN late 19th cent.: probably from gelatin +Latin (l)ignis ‘wood’ + -ite 1.

Such beautiful word for something that isn't. I learned it thanks to the TV show Weeds and was reminded of it recently as I was listening to the soundtrack. The song Bullets by British band Tunng uses it.

"Green hills and enemies
These things they make us sentimental inside
Your words are gelignite
Or just another sentimental aside


We're catching bullets in our teeth
And though it's easy when you know how it's done
They split the secret up six ways before they gave it to us just before dawn
And now we don't remember"

(See the rest of the lyrics here.) It's lyrical song about death, murder, and the Mexican drug trade.

Vintage Monday: Top Dog

Last week we learned how how cool pipes are--or at least used to be. Men smoked them even on the beach. Today I present further evidence that pipe smoking is the mark of a sophisticated gentleman.

Happy Mayday!

Blast from the past.