Lorelili's definitions

redundant

Excessive, unnecessary, superfluous (exceeding what is necessary). Perhaps the opposite of oxymoronic (a juxtaposition of two seemingly contradictory meanings).

Just a few redundant phrases:

ATM Machine ("Automatic Teller Machine Machine")
Greenwich Village ("Green Village Village")
PIN Number ("Personal Identification Number Number")
cute dog/ cute cat
Catholic Pope
an added bonus
over-exaggerate
false pretense
completely surrounded
and etc
unconfirmed rumors
HIV Virus ("Human Immunodeficiency Virus Virus")
preplan
preheat
prerecord
La Brea Tar Pits ("The the tar pits tar pits")
lukewarm ("warm warm")
written manuscript

by Lorelili July 25, 2011

peasant

A farm worker, usually poor. The most common type of person in a pre-industrial society (usually 66 to 95%), and of the lowest class.

Peasants were/are typically small farmers, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, farmhands, and laborers and invariably rural, living in villages and tending land which is practically theirs but officially belongs to the wealthy.

Usually an insult for dirty, uncouth, unsophisticated people of low status.

Peasants stereotypically have virtually no education, nonexistent hygiene, are conservative, and have almost no rights, despite that their work requires careful planning and that they are not averse to protests.

The peasant woman, her three daughters, and her husband's many kinswomen tended the garden and the livestock while their menfolk toiled in the fields. They had little option but either work until their backs gave out or starve, plus they had to pay heavy taxes for the rich.

by Lorelili November 17, 2010

sweatshop

A makeshift factory where men, women, and children slave for twelve hours or more a day for almost no money in crowded, dirty, dangerous conditions under the iron fist of unscrupulous managers just so that rich children get the toys that they want for their birthdays and for Christmas and so that their parents and older siblings get nice clothes and cool gadgets.

Nike, Banana Republic, the Gap, among others, use sweatshops. Sweatshops are everywhere, from Thailand and Honduras to New York and Los Angeles, often virtually enslaving workers.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire on March 25, 1911, in New York killed 146 clothing makers, most of them young immigrant women, some of them as young as thirteen. 62 of them jumped nine floors to the street below in their effort to escape the fire. And the patterns are being repeated today around the world.

by Lorelili March 9, 2010

skirt

A traditionally feminine garment. It's a simple tube that can either be tight-fitting or loose and draped. The length is usually anywhere from mid-thigh to floor-length..

Tight skirts can be uncomfortable or difficult to move in, and long skirts can lead to embarrassing situations if it's windy day and especially if the fabric is too lightweight.

Still, they do provide more freedom from the confinements of trousers and provide modesty if a woman must relieve herself outdoors.

Women can also wear leggings underneath skirts for warmth and/or modesty.

Until the Rennaisance, European men often wore a form of skirt, although they probably didn't concider it a skirt.

Nowadays, there's the Polynesian sarong and the Gaelic kilt for men.

by Lorelili May 13, 2005