Monday Morning Mirth
It’s that time of the Year again and over here at ChicKnits we’re checking out lists and making them twice:
TOP 10 WORDS OF 2004
1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestrationOK! QUICK! Just what does *peloton* mean???
…according to Merriam-Webster’s
Easy peasy. Peloton is the word for a pack of bicycle racers who all ride close together in order to draft off of one another. Imagine, if you will, a peloton of tandem bicycles. My summer, right there.
Now, if you had asked about No. 10 my ignorance would shine…
defenestration: the act of throwing someone out the window, i forget if it was specifically the second story window…
Well, here’s a small piece of medical trivia for you: In the old days, the ear surgery that they did to try to improve hearing, where they went in through the ear drum, was called defenestration. That’s been replaced by a procedure called stapedectomy, where they remove the little bones in the ear (yep, they are still going in through the drum) and replacing it with a prosthesis.
Defenestration does not require throwing anyone out of it; just removing the windows. I think it is related to some historical period with a tax based on the number of windows but I might be confused there.
Good list of words though.
Now, I understand: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9.
But, WHO is looking up *defenestration* – or better yet, WHO is using it so we have to look it up.
AND, the #1 word: BLOG?!!! Are people just cutting their teeth on this one?
Well:
It’s an Art Installation
http://www.defenestration.org/what.html
AND
It’s a HUMOR MAGAZINE:
http://www.defenestrationmag.net/
It’s a Celtic Heavy Metal Band!
http://www.defen.co.uk/
It’s GEEK SPEAK!
“Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster. “Oh, ghod, that was awful!” “Quick! Defenestrate him!”
The act of exiting a window system in order to get better response time from a full-screen program. This is derived from the dictionary meaning of defenestrate, to throw something out a window.
The act of discarding something under the assumption that it will improve matters. “I don’t have any disk space left.” “Well, why don’t you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?”
Under a GUI, the act of dragging something out of a window (onto the screen). “Next, defenestrate the MugWump icon.”
More recently, the term ‘defenestration’ has been used for the act of removing Microsoft Windows from a PC.”
…according to the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
OK! I got it: Give me your poor, your tired, your worn down ideas and I’ll defenestrate them right out the brain!
‘Peloton’ is also a Finnish word, meaning ‘fearless’.
Peloton
A densely packed group of riders, sheltering in each others’ draft. In a mass-start race, most of the competitors usually end up in one large peloton for most of the race. The word is French, from a term that means rolled up in a ball…a related word, peloter, means to caress sensually, cuddle.
Actually, pelot
Peleton? Say, I could have used one of those when I pedaled to work this morning — it was CaaaaOLD. Never heard of defenestration, but I’ll have to work it into a sentence some time soon. ;)