Dinkum's definitions
(1) ' n. A large wading bird with long legs and a long beak of the family Ciconiidae. ' -- Wiktionary
(2) ' According to European folklore, the stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. The legend is very ancient, but was popularised by a 19th-century Hans Christian Andersen story called "The Storks". '
-- Wikipedia { en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Stork#Storks_and_childbirth }
(2) ' According to European folklore, the stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. The legend is very ancient, but was popularised by a 19th-century Hans Christian Andersen story called "The Storks". '
-- Wikipedia { en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Stork#Storks_and_childbirth }
EXAMPLE:
' Harry's wife, Grace, was stretched out on a chaise longue . . . She was smoking a small cigar in a long holder made from the legbone of a stork. A stork was a large European bird, about half the size of a Bermuda Ern. Children who wanted to know where babies came from were sometimes told that they were brought by storks. People who told their children such a thing felt that their children were too young to think intelligently about {sex}.
' And there were actually pictures of storks delivering babies on birth announcements and in cartoons and so on, for children to see . . .
' Dwayne Hoover and Harry LeSabre saw pictures like that when they were very little boys. They believed them, too. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (pages 162 - 163).
' Harry's wife, Grace, was stretched out on a chaise longue . . . She was smoking a small cigar in a long holder made from the legbone of a stork. A stork was a large European bird, about half the size of a Bermuda Ern. Children who wanted to know where babies came from were sometimes told that they were brought by storks. People who told their children such a thing felt that their children were too young to think intelligently about {sex}.
' And there were actually pictures of storks delivering babies on birth announcements and in cartoons and so on, for children to see . . .
' Dwayne Hoover and Harry LeSabre saw pictures like that when they were very little boys. They believed them, too. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (pages 162 - 163).
by Dinkum August 28, 2013
Get the stork mug.A person suffering from or subject to coprolalia, the obsessive and uncontrollable use of scatological language. (Compare with such like back-formations as insomnia and insomniac; hypochondria and hypochondriac; coprophagia and coprophagiac; coprophilia and coprophiliac).
The "jailin' it" droopy-drawers doofus was a COPROLALIAC: he suffered from "the Black man's disease", the utter inability to assemble even the simplest English sentence without lavishly larding his utterances with a plethora of "fuckers", "motherfuckers", "motherfucking", . . . and, well, you get the picture. It was almost as if "motherfucker" was the only word he knew and he was bound and determined to make the most of it -- as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, an imperative, and, of course, as an interjection! Yeah, good ol' Droopy Drawers, he's cheesin' it as he's sleazin' it -- he's a real kool kitty, a regular "copro-cat".
by Dinkum September 2, 2013
Get the Coprolaliac mug.DEFINITIONS:
(1) Any toothless, crazy old bag lady who stumbles down the street yelling at passersby. She specializes in speaking to people no one else can see, sincerely believing all the while that she is completely capable of simultaneously addressing a "parliament" of owls, a "murder" of crows, AND a congress of crocodiles.
(2) By extension, any government official or self-appointed "authority" who says you must do something when they have only some toothless law or ordinance to back up their words. (Better do what I say, or I'll gum you to death!)
(1) Any toothless, crazy old bag lady who stumbles down the street yelling at passersby. She specializes in speaking to people no one else can see, sincerely believing all the while that she is completely capable of simultaneously addressing a "parliament" of owls, a "murder" of crows, AND a congress of crocodiles.
(2) By extension, any government official or self-appointed "authority" who says you must do something when they have only some toothless law or ordinance to back up their words. (Better do what I say, or I'll gum you to death!)
EXAMPLES:
(1) We met a crackhead in Cleveland who went by the name "Queen No-teef-ah."
(2) Last time I had a toothache I couldn't see a dentist. I had to get it pulled down at Killer County where they used what looked like the bone from a rat's rib to pry it out my mouth. Had two pulled since then, so now I feel like Queen No-teef-ah.
(3) Durham county has laws on the books requiring that all citizens and businesses recycle -- but seldom if ever are these laws enforced. So, without enforcement, these laws remain toothless, like crazy ol' Queen No-teef-ah. What do they plan to do, gum us to death?
(1) We met a crackhead in Cleveland who went by the name "Queen No-teef-ah."
(2) Last time I had a toothache I couldn't see a dentist. I had to get it pulled down at Killer County where they used what looked like the bone from a rat's rib to pry it out my mouth. Had two pulled since then, so now I feel like Queen No-teef-ah.
(3) Durham county has laws on the books requiring that all citizens and businesses recycle -- but seldom if ever are these laws enforced. So, without enforcement, these laws remain toothless, like crazy ol' Queen No-teef-ah. What do they plan to do, gum us to death?
by Dinkum March 5, 2014
Get the Queen No-teef-ah mug.(1) ' n. Any of various poisonous American snakes, of genera Crotalus and Sistrurus, having a rattle at the end of its tail. ' -- Wiktionary
(2) According to Kurt Vonnegut, the rattlesnake is a creature so inimical to humankind that it makes you wonder about the vaunted benevolence of the Creator of the Universe.
(2) According to Kurt Vonnegut, the rattlesnake is a creature so inimical to humankind that it makes you wonder about the vaunted benevolence of the Creator of the Universe.
EXAMPLE:
' Dwayne mimicked her cruelly in a falsetto voice . . . He looked about as pleasant and relaxed as a coiled rattlesnake now. It was his bad chemicals, of course, which were compelling him to look like that . . .
' The Creator of the Universe had put a rattle on its {the rattlesnake's} tail. The Creator had also given it front teeth which were hypodermic syringes filled with deadly poison.
' Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 159 - 160).
' Dwayne mimicked her cruelly in a falsetto voice . . . He looked about as pleasant and relaxed as a coiled rattlesnake now. It was his bad chemicals, of course, which were compelling him to look like that . . .
' The Creator of the Universe had put a rattle on its {the rattlesnake's} tail. The Creator had also given it front teeth which were hypodermic syringes filled with deadly poison.
' Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe. '
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 159 - 160).
by Dinkum August 28, 2013
Get the rattlesnake mug.(Interrogative, colloq.) African-American English for "Why", or more emphatically, "What for?"
NOTE: The expression "the right word" is the English equivalent of the French "mot juste" -- "n. The perfectly appropriate word or phrase for the situation." -- Wiktionary.
NOTE: The expression "the right word" is the English equivalent of the French "mot juste" -- "n. The perfectly appropriate word or phrase for the situation." -- Wiktionary.
EXAMPLE:
' "I guess that isn't the right word," she said. She was used to apologizing for her use of language. She had been encouraged to do a lot of that in school. Most white people in Midland City were insecure when they spoke, so they kept their sentences short and their words simple, in order to keep embarrassing mistakes to a minimum. Dwayne certainly did that. Patty certainly did that.
' This was because their English teachers would wince and cover their ears and give them flunking grades and so on whenever they failed to speak like English aristocrats before the First World War. Also: they were told that they were unworthy to speak or write their language if they couldn't love or understand incomprehensible novels and plays about people long ago and far away, such as "Ivanhoe".
' The black people would not put up with this. They went on talking English every which way. They refused to read books they couldn't understand -- on the grounds they couldn't understand them. They would ask such impudent questions as, "Whuffo I want to read no "Tale of Two Cities"? Whuffo?
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 138).
' "I guess that isn't the right word," she said. She was used to apologizing for her use of language. She had been encouraged to do a lot of that in school. Most white people in Midland City were insecure when they spoke, so they kept their sentences short and their words simple, in order to keep embarrassing mistakes to a minimum. Dwayne certainly did that. Patty certainly did that.
' This was because their English teachers would wince and cover their ears and give them flunking grades and so on whenever they failed to speak like English aristocrats before the First World War. Also: they were told that they were unworthy to speak or write their language if they couldn't love or understand incomprehensible novels and plays about people long ago and far away, such as "Ivanhoe".
' The black people would not put up with this. They went on talking English every which way. They refused to read books they couldn't understand -- on the grounds they couldn't understand them. They would ask such impudent questions as, "Whuffo I want to read no "Tale of Two Cities"? Whuffo?
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Chapter 15 (page 138).
by Dinkum August 28, 2013
Get the Whuffo? mug.November 11, formerly observed in the United States in commemoration of the signing of the armistice ending World War I in 1918. Since 1954 it has been incorporated into the observances of Veterans Day.
-- American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition
-- American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition
EXAMPLE:
"So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.
"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy . . . all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
"It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
"Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
"So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
"What else is sacred? Oh, "Romeo and Juliet", for instance.
"And all music is."
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Preface (page 6).
"So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.
"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy . . . all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
"It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
"Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
"So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
"What else is sacred? Oh, "Romeo and Juliet", for instance.
"And all music is."
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Preface (page 6).
by Dinkum September 3, 2013
Get the Armistice Day mug.(1) Any doomsday catalyst; any precipitator which brings about cataclysmic, apocalyptic change -- yes, Virginia, THE END of the world, Armageddon, "that's all she wrote", APOCALYPTIC #FAIL!
(2) The Unholy Grail of overzealous scientists who in the thoughtless pursuit of "pure science" unwittingly create a doomsday device.
(3) Specifically, the fictional doomsday catalyst envisioned by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel "Cat's Cradle." Ironically, the inventor of Vonnegut's "ice-nine" never intended his creation to be used as a doomsday device; this shortsighted scientist only foresaw "ice-nine" being used for the ploddingly pedestrian purpose of making it possible for combat Marines to march over mud in much the same manner that Jesus is said to have come striding across the tempest-tossed waves of the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14:24).
(2) The Unholy Grail of overzealous scientists who in the thoughtless pursuit of "pure science" unwittingly create a doomsday device.
(3) Specifically, the fictional doomsday catalyst envisioned by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel "Cat's Cradle." Ironically, the inventor of Vonnegut's "ice-nine" never intended his creation to be used as a doomsday device; this shortsighted scientist only foresaw "ice-nine" being used for the ploddingly pedestrian purpose of making it possible for combat Marines to march over mud in much the same manner that Jesus is said to have come striding across the tempest-tossed waves of the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14:24).
EXAMPLES:
(1) ' "Suppose," chortled Dr. Breed, "there were many possible ways water could freeze. Suppose the ice we skate upon -- what we might call ice-one -- is only one type of ice. Suppose water always froze as ice-one because it had never had a seed to teach it how to form ice-two, ice-three, ice-four? Suppose there were one form, which we will call ice-nine -- with a melting point of 130 degrees. " '
-- "Cat's Cradle", Ch. 20
(2) ' Breed asked me to think of Marines in a swamp.
' "Their trucks are sinking in ooze."
' He winked. "But suppose one Marine had a capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle . . . ?"
' "The puddle would freeze?" I guessed.
' "And all the puddles . . .?"
' "They would freeze?"
' "You bet they would!" he cried. "And the Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!" '
-- "Cat's Cradle", Ch. 21
(3) ' "I keep thinking about that swamp" I said. "If the streams flowing through the swamp froze as ice-nine, what about the rivers and lakes the streams fed?"
' "They'd freeze."
' "And the oceans . . . ?"
' "They'd freeze, of course," Dr. Breed snapped.
' "And the springs . . . ?"
' "They'd freeze, damn it!" he cried.
' "And the rain?"
' "When it fell, it would freeze into hard little hobnails of ice-nine -- and that would be the end of the world!" '
-- "Cat's Cradle", Ch. 22
(1) ' "Suppose," chortled Dr. Breed, "there were many possible ways water could freeze. Suppose the ice we skate upon -- what we might call ice-one -- is only one type of ice. Suppose water always froze as ice-one because it had never had a seed to teach it how to form ice-two, ice-three, ice-four? Suppose there were one form, which we will call ice-nine -- with a melting point of 130 degrees. " '
-- "Cat's Cradle", Ch. 20
(2) ' Breed asked me to think of Marines in a swamp.
' "Their trucks are sinking in ooze."
' He winked. "But suppose one Marine had a capsule containing a seed of ice-nine, a new way for the atoms of water to stack and lock, to freeze. If that Marine threw that seed into the nearest puddle . . . ?"
' "The puddle would freeze?" I guessed.
' "And all the puddles . . .?"
' "They would freeze?"
' "You bet they would!" he cried. "And the Marines would rise from the swamp and march on!" '
-- "Cat's Cradle", Ch. 21
(3) ' "I keep thinking about that swamp" I said. "If the streams flowing through the swamp froze as ice-nine, what about the rivers and lakes the streams fed?"
' "They'd freeze."
' "And the oceans . . . ?"
' "They'd freeze, of course," Dr. Breed snapped.
' "And the springs . . . ?"
' "They'd freeze, damn it!" he cried.
' "And the rain?"
' "When it fell, it would freeze into hard little hobnails of ice-nine -- and that would be the end of the world!" '
-- "Cat's Cradle", Ch. 22
by Dinkum August 20, 2013
Get the Ice-nine mug.