Fertile water

Earlier, I was impressed by the number of words you could make with the letters in “Christmas”, but now I found that “submarine” offers even more words. I’m still coming up with more, but these are the ones I’ve come up with so far:

a I am an as be in is me us are arm ban bar bin bum bun bus ear emu man mar men nab nib nub ram ran rem rib rim rub rue rum run sir sub sue sum sun use anus arse bane bans bare barn base beam bean bear berm bias bier bins bran brim bris bums burn ears emir emus main mane mare mean menu mine muse nabs name near nibs nubs numb rain rams ream rein ribs rime rims rise rubs rues ruin rune runs ruse same sane seam sear Serb sine sire snub sure abuse amuse bairn banes bares barns beams beans bears berms biers brain bream brims brine bruin burns emirs inure manes mains mares maser means mines minus names nares nears numbs nurse rains raise reams rebus reins rimes rinse ruins rumba runes serum smear snare urban urine animus brains bruins ermine inures manure marine murine number Sabine sarnie urbane ursine numbers seminar Serbian Sumerian

Some proper names: Ben Ian Amur Iran Mars Brian Burma Maine Marie Marne Sarin Sarum Serbia

And I’d also like to add NURBS if it is allowed.

Now, the question is, what should a word-finding word look like in order to offer the maximum possibilities? Surely someone has been working on this. I will have to search for this.

Veckans ord: priorotera

När man arbetar med ett projekt kan flera deluppgifter vara viktigast, då får man priorotera mellan dem.

Veckans ord: härröra

En anledning till den framgångsrika tyska invasionen av Frankrike var att de brittiska och franska arméerna var okoordinerade, det var rent ut sagt en fullkomlig härröra.

Veckans ord: underökning

För att bli saligförklarad måste man ha åstadkommit ett mirakel efter sin död, men för att bli helgon krävs en underökning till två mirakel.

Veckans ord: örnfil

Här en gosse som bereder sig på att dela ut en örnfil, icke att förväxla med en orre.

Veckans ord: porlkran

Jag insåg precis att vattenflödet över innergården i Genève kom från en porlkran. Därför blev det annat ljud i källan.

Flotsam and jetsam

Some time ago, my mother and I were out walking on a crisp autumn day. A contrail crossed the sky, and my mother, as she always does, pointed it out and said: “Look, a jet fighter!”

Now, people often say stuff that is incorrectly specific, to try to be funny or whatever. (The OBCM, for example, will refer to all birds as “ducks”, to underscore that she’s a city girl and can’t be bothered with the details of non-asphalt-based organisms.) But this time, just to make conversation, I said: “Heh, yeah, but properly speaking it’s a passenger aircraft, clearly going to land at Arlanda.”

My mother was surprised. “It’s an aeroplane?”

I in turn was surprised. “Uh yes, or well, aeroplane exhaust. If you look carefully, you can see the plane itself at the tip.” I gave a brief explanation of how contrails form in the cold air at altitude, and my mother marvelled at this new information. I for my part realised that she had been a child when newly-purchased Vampire jets probably would have been the only aircraft flying high enough to form contrails in the skies of Finland. Presumably her elders would have pointed out the streamers in the sky, excitedly referring to them as “jet fighters” [suihkuhävittäjiä], but not making it clear that a jet fighter was a type of aircraft rather than a strange name for a strange celestial phenomenon, and somehow the misunderstanding had gone uncorrected all this time.

I wonder what misconceptions I have that people think are just me trying to be funny.

Veckans ord: pelargon

Det är klart att en stylit vill vara ensam för en stunds pelargon i solskenet.

Viikon sana: hummustuhnu

Huononlaatuisen falafelannoksen seuraus: hummustuhnu.

The Internet is for porn…

…and that’s why the biggest search engine is called Go ogle.

Veckans ord: höstack

Denna kalla och regniga årstid utbrister man lätt i ett och annat höstack.

Veckans ord: flottbas

Marinens mat är extremt fet eftersom den är tillagad på flottbas.

Word of the week: pronounciation

“Verbing weirds language”, as famously noted by Calvin and indeed there’s every year a new proliferation of new nouns to be verbed. However, other word classes tend to be quite hide-bound. Now there’s been a small amount of pronounciation going on in the creation of genderless pronouns, such as “E” and “Xe”. In Swedish the suggestion of ”hen” as a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun has created some amount of debate and indeed ridicule. It has however been pointed out that the gendered third person plural pronouns were dropped already in mediæval Swedish, so that the depronounciation process started a long time ago.

Word of the week: hippocracy

The country of the Houyhnhnms is ruled by horses, it is a hippocracy.

Word of the week: rockcoaches

Even though Fame was placed in a music school in New York, I never noticed that they had any rockcoaches.

Veckans ord: stötförening

Det får tillstås att Arlanda Flygsamlingars Vänner är en stötförening.

Veckans ord: skurgummor

Stammens regndanser utfördes av högutbildade kvinnliga specialister, s k skurgummor.

Veckans ord: krängningshämmare

Försäljare drabbas ibland av handelshinder, dvs krängningshämmare.

I det militära

Mycket ung officer – blöjtnant.
Officer i Musikkåren – flöjtnant.
Maskerad officer – slöjtnant.
Lat officer – lojtnant.
Bonde och reservofficer – plöjtnant.
Skojfrisk officer – plojtnant.
Tramsig ung officer – blajtnant.

Word of the week: irrelephant

Even if there is a large animal nearby it might not be of immediate interest to you—it’s irrelephant.