Zamboozee's definitions

Vermicelli

Another name for thin spaghetti, which on inspection looks much like small worms one eats, rather than ones that eat one; also, it not being a word derived from an Italianate word that means the plural of musical vermin playing the cello badly, although this could become a popular misconception of its meaning if one put one’s mind to it.

“You’ve burnt the vermicelli,” the banker said to his wife, who had heard it all before, as she did it deliberately every Friday to annoy him whenever he annoyed her over exceeding her weekly housekeeping allowance.

by Zamboozee April 15, 2011

Bouquiniste

A French-sounding, indeed unnecessary, word for someone who deals in second hand books, and usually being ones of an obscure or pedantic nature.

Ah, the joy of travelling to Paris to find a bouquiniste, it beats popping down to Cecil Court to find an obscure book on cartography anytime.

by Zamboozee April 13, 2011

Gymnopaedia

A yearly get together promoted by a load of ancient Spartans to peruse the equality of their youth, by allowing them to parade their prowess before them through the formalization of pederastic pedagogy via the medium of dancing; or, alternatively, a kinky Greek word not actually meaning the morbid fear of gyms, but it is quite close to being so, and which originally probably came about by knowing too much about what happens to young men in them.

Let’s go to the Gymnopaedia, you and I, it’s a good day to heckle those old men ogling the young men there, and teach them a lesson they’ll never forget, and with luck we’ll be able to ogle a few young women as well while we’re at it, just for good measure.

by Zamboozee April 18, 2011

double mind Jedi

Disrupting or attacking the opposition from within by secretly infiltrating its organization or territory through stealth, and then using its own weapons against it.

To eradicate all those who collaborate with an enemy by assassinating anybody who collaborated with the enemy is a double mind Jedi. As it is commonly known.

by Zamboozee May 28, 2011

Plagiarism

Intellectual copyright theft of the worst kind, or passing off; a ripe forgery in the literary sphere; taking something one took the time and trouble to write out again in a slightly different form and claiming it as one’s own inimitable work as coming from the sweat of one’s brow, and so then, in some vital respect, it must be one’s own work, if only because if one took the time and trouble to do it again in a slightly different way then it must be one’s own intellectual copyright material to do with as one wishes, and so legally, in consequence, it is therefore still intellectual theft from its original owner, and decidedly so also, but then becomes serious only if it is found out.

It was not that the author disagreed with what was written one jot, as he has written it himself, it was that someone else had taken it and published it in his own name, which was plagiarism of the worst kind, and especially so since its original author had not been paid a penny for it either.

by Zamboozee April 5, 2011

Death

The naturally holistic remedy for living popularly seen by most people as being a life-changing event not quite being the opposite of life, but very close to it; or, perhaps more relevantly, some strange metaphysical event to do with the even stranger metaphysical event of being born that, as a consequence, cannot possibly be avoided and so is preferably something to be kept at arm’s length as long as possible, or until it is too late to be avoided anyway.

It is not the concept of death per se that is the problem, it is the knowing that one is dead after one is dead, so to speak, either in heaven or hell, or elsewhere, that can really keep you up at night with insomnia, dead or alive.

by Zamboozee April 13, 2011

Officionardo

Somebody who does not completely lord it over all he surveys at the workplace or at a social gathering, but who would like to, he being a sort of “straw-boss” of officious ceremonies or, if not that exactly, something quite close to being so.

I do believe that you’re a bit of an officionardo. I’ve met your kind before, especially in the local Borough Council where you like to stamp every form in sight with a big red stamp and then shove it in the files somewhere, never to be see again.

by Zamboozee May 28, 2011