Skip to main content

Lorelili's definitions

Gertrude Baniszewski

(1929-1990) One of the most disturbing murderers in Indiana history (and indeed history in general), a demon disguised as a mother. A three times divorced borderline personality and sociopath who lead her seven children and several neighborhood children in the appalling two-month torture in 1965 of two sisters who she was boarding, Silvia and Jenny Likens (ages 16 and 15) and eventually murdered Silvia.
The stronger of the pair, Silvia took the brunt of Gertrude's fury; she called Silvia filthy (Gertrude's own house was a virmin-ridden hellhole), called her a whore (Gertrude had fucked another man during one of her three marriages (resulting in a child) and her own teenage daughter was a slut who was pregnant by a married man) and subjected the girls (and Silvia in particular) to physical, verbal, and sexual tortures that are nightmares to even conceive of.
Neighbors had noticed the battered state of the Likens girls, but they did not report Gertrude.
Gertrude tried to pin the crimes on her children and the neighborhood children when Silvia's hideously mangled body was found.
In other words, a demon bitch and a good reason for parents to do extensive background checks on caregivers before entrusting their loved ones to them.
Gertrude Baniszewski was sentenced to life in prison in 1966, but was paroled in 1985 for "good behavior", despite the outrage of the Likens family and the public at large. She died under a false name in 1990; it marks a huge injustice for two innocent young women who were martyrs to a needless crime.

Her eldest daughter and the rest of her children and the other children involved were also sentenced, but their punishments seem more like a slap on the wrist.

She could be compared to Lori Drew for Drew's cyberbullying of Megan Meier (leading the girl to suicide) for some perceived slight toward her own daughter.
by Lorelili August 17, 2011
mugGet the Gertrude Baniszewskimug.

English

Either means the people of England or a sadly mangled language. Once belonging to the Germanic Anglo-Saxons, the language has since become influenced by scores of other languages, slowly destroying the English language and its structure and rules.

Shanty (From Gaelic "Sean taigh"("old house")), galore (from Gaelic "gu leòr" ("enough")), whiskey (from Gaelic "uisge" ("water")), hamburger (from "Hamburg steak"), flower (from French "fleur", itself from Latin "flor"), bloom (from German "blum" ("flower")) and countless other words from so many other languages have, for better or worse, steeped into English.
"Let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England or french fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese? One index, two indices? Is cheese the plural of choose?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can the weather be hot as hell one day an cold as hell another?
When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm clock goes off by going on.
When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?
Now I know why I flunked my English. It’s not my fault; the silly language doesn’t quite know whether it’s coming or going." -Richard Lederer.
by Lorelili March 28, 2005
mugGet the Englishmug.

fair

1. Just, right, as opposed to one-sided and biased.

2. Mediocre, not bad but not good.

3. Pale, of light color. Applied to hair, it signifies blonde.

4. Beautiful, especially applied to women.
1. "Oh Knights of Ni, you are just and fair!"

2. "You did fairly on the test. Try to study next time."

3. "The sprite darted through the forest, her fair hair streaming behind her."

"Fair hair" usually signifies blonde hair. Still, used loosely, it can mean all shades of blond, a few lighter shades of red hair, and light brown hair.

4. "A rose shall bloom,/And then shall fade./So does the youth,/So does the fairest maid."
by Lorelili March 31, 2006
mugGet the fairmug.

pyroclastic flow

A fast-moving cloud of superheated volcanic gasses, ash, and rock that hug the ground and even the surface of the sea as they rush at speeds of up to 450 mph, destroying anything in their paths.
Pyroclastic flows are usually the result of centuries of pent-up stress within the volcano; thick, sticky magma plugs the vent of the volcano and thus builds greater and greater pressure until it explodes.
Usually the flow is denser than the surrounding air and instead of flowing vertically, they rush along the ground, sweeping over hills and ridges like the said hills and ridges don't even exist.

Pyroclastic flows can reach temperatures as high as 1830 degrees F, and the average temperature is about half that; hot enough to boil the blood in one's body and effectively flash-cook you alive. Some victims are charred while others get fatal steam burns.

In short, a far more forceful and dangerous force than lava and more difficult to escape, due to their speed and intense heat.
Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed in 79 CE when Mount Vesuvius exploded, sending a pyroclastic flow barreling toward both towns, searing the lungs and burning the flesh of anybody who would not or could not flee.

May 8, 1902, about 30,000 people were killed in St. Pierre, Martinique, when Mt. Pelee sent a pyroclastic flow over the city.

Mount St. Helens famously erupted with a pyroclastic flow turning the surrounding forest into a lunar landscape.

The fringes of the pyroclastic flow do not always cut a clear line between life and death; survivors at the fringes often endure hideous burns.
by Lorelili August 19, 2012
mugGet the pyroclastic flowmug.

forlorn hope

A band of soldiers or other combatants chosen to take the leading part in a military operation, such as an assault on a defended position, where the risk of casualties is high.

The term is from Dutch, roughly translated as "lost troop".
While the Donner Party was trapped in the mountains, a team of the fifteen strongest immigrants (five women, nine men, and a boy of twelve) set out on December 16, 1846, to find help, using makeshift snowshoes made by an old farmer, Franklin Graves. Later known as the "Forlorn Hope", the group consisted of:
*Luis and Salvador (19, 28), Miwok guides, murdered for food.
*Antonio (23), a teamster, died
*Patrick Dolan (35), died
*William Foster (31), survived
*Sarah Murphy-Foster (20), survived; she and William lost their toddler, Jeremiah (2.5)
*Harriet Murphy-Pike (18), survived; lost her baby, Catherine
*Lemuel Murphy (12), died despite his sisters; his mother, Levina (37), and brother, John (17), also lost
*William Eddy (28), survived; lost his wife, Eleanor (25), and both children, James and Margaret (3, 1)
*Franklin Graves (57), died; his wife, Elizabeth (46), and three youngest children, Jonathan, little Franklin, and little Elizabeth (7, 5, 1), were lost.
*Mary Graves (20), survived
*Sarah Graves-Fosdick (22), survived
*Jay Fosdick (23), died
*Amanda McCutchen (23), survived; lost her baby, Harriet
*Charles Stanton (30), died
The Forlorn Hope wandered from December 16, 1846, until January 17, when a Miwok village helped the seven survivors to the safety of Johnson's Ranch, where they called for a rescue mission.
On Christmas Day, hopelessly lost and their starvation rations gone, the idea of cannibalism was first discussed, but nobody could bear to kill anybody. As a blizzard lashed them that night, Antonio died, followed by Graves, who died in the arms of his daughters; Dolan went mad before he slipped into a coma. Those remaining butchered and ate the flesh of their dead companions, sobbing in shame as they ate; Luis and Salvador, plus William Eddy, refused to eat. Taking pains to avoid eating their dead relatives, the party trudged on, cursing the man whose shortcut had led them to this.
William Foster, crazed by hunger, suggested killing Luis and Salvador for food; Eddy unsuccessfully tried to discourage him before warning the two men, who ran as far as they could.
Sarah Fosdick, a newlywed, had just lost her father and then had to watch her husband die and then see his heart roasting on a stick.
"What to do we did not know. Some of those who had children and families wished to go back, but the two Indians said they would go on. I told them I would go too, for to go back and hear the cries of hunger from my brothers and sisters was more than I could stand. I would go as far as I could, let the consequences be what they might." -Mary Graves (1826-1891)
by Lorelili January 4, 2012
mugGet the forlorn hopemug.

stable

Noun: a building where animals, especially horses, are housed.

Adjective: relatively permanent or unchanging, firmly fixed or established; unlikely to be unbalanced, changed, destroyed or altered. Consistent, dependable, and moderate.
The stable rang with the sounds of a young mare in labor; the yelps of the other horses brought the farmer running. He and his wife remained calm and stable as they helped the mare give birth to her first foal, a beautiful chestnut filly.
by Lorelili July 29, 2011
mugGet the stablemug.

Annie Chapman

(September, 1841-September 8, 1888) Also known as "Dark Annie", the second recognized victim of Jack the Ripper.
Born Eliza Ann Smith, she was married in 1869 to John Chapman, a coachman, had two daughters and a son (Emily Ruth, born 1870; Annie Georgina, born 1873; John Alfred, born 1880) with him, and they lived fairly comfortably for some time.
Life went awry when young John was born crippled. Then in 1882, Emily Ruth died of meningitis at age 12. Around this time, the couple began drinking heavily. About 1884, they separated.

Annie somehow fell to the slums of Whitechapel by 1886. John continued to send her 10 shillings a week until Christmas of 1886, when he died of cirrhosis. His death shattered Annie's will to live.
In her last days, Annie was a homeless alcoholic, living in lodging houses, selling flowers and crocheting and occasionally prostituting herself (despite her plain features, plump figure, and poor health) to get by.
While the rest of the Ripper victims came from ordinary working class backgrounds, Annie Chapman's family had a foothold in the middle class. Known by her friends late in life as "Dark Annie", for her dark brown hair, Annie had become estranged from her surviving children and from her sisters.
Only 5 feet tall, plump, and never a classic beauty, at age 47 Annie Chapman was malnourished, a homeless streetwalker, and suffering from tuberculosis and brain diseases that would have killed her soon if Jack had not killed her.
At 1:35 AM on September 8, 1888, Annie was turned away from her lodging house since she had no money for a bed. She was last seen alive at 5:30 AM outside 29 Hanbury Street, negotiating with a man who was probably her killer. Half an hour later, her body was found in the backyard of the same house, inches from the back steps.

Her skirt was hiked to her groin and her legs pulled up and leaning outwards, implying coitus; her throat was cut to the bone, her stomach opened, her intestines pulled out and draped over her shoulder, and her uterus taken away.
by Lorelili October 7, 2012
mugGet the Annie Chapmanmug.

Share this definition