Verbal Dueling – The Game

[doctorow]

It's Merriam-Webster Online's 2004 Top Ten Favorite Words:

#1 defenestration
#2 serendipity
#3 onomatopoeia
#4 discombobulate
#5 plethora
#6 callipygian
#7 juxtapose
#8 persnickety
#9 kerfuffle
#10 flibbertigibbet

[brahamt]

And of the ten, I only know what 6 of them mean. Looks like it's time to visit the site and look them up

[w1k0]

Round #1; List by doctorow

A plethora of flibbertigibbet’s juxtaposing and persnickety kerfuffle discombobulated me so ample that I defenestrated him so his callipygian posterior attained the thoroughfare by serendipity with an uproarious onomatopoeia.
(29 words)

(A humorous usage of “onomatopoeia” is intentional though it seems that it may break the rules formulated six days later – see: post #9.)

The Translation

A whole lot of flighty man’s contrasting and detailed fuss confused me so much that I threw him out of a window so his well-shaped buttocks reached the street luckily with a noisy “boom!”.

[w1k0]

Round #2; List by w1k0

Merriam-Webster’s Top Ten Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary):

1. ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous
2. confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time
3. woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement
4. chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends
5. cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway
6. gription (n): the purchase gained by friction: "My car needs new tires because the old ones have lost their gription."
7. phonecrastinate (v): to put off answering the phone until caller ID displays the incoming name and number
8. slickery (adj): having a surface that is wet and icy
9. snirt (n): snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed
10. lingweenie (n): a person incapable of producing neologisms

Originally Posted by w1k0

Merriam-Webster’s Top Ten Favorite Words (Not in the Dictionary):

1. ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous
2. confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time
3. woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement
4. chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends
5. cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway
6. gription (n): the purchase gained by friction: "My car needs new tires because the old ones have lost their gription."
7. phonecrastinate (v): to put off answering the phone until caller ID displays the incoming name and number
8. slickery (adj): having a surface that is wet and icy
9. snirt (n): snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots that have been plowed
10. lingweenie (n): a person incapable of producing neologisms

Interesting that neither twerk nor selfie made that list. Less interesting perhaps that I have never even seen any of the words in print, nor heard them.

[w1k0]

Hamlet53,

These words are selected from the words checked in the online dictionary by its users. They are probably relatively new ones and not very popular.

***

Round #1.1; List by doctorow updated by w1k0

The list similar to the published nine years ago by doctorow is now here: People's Top 10 Favorite Words:

#1: Defenestration
#2: Flibbertigibbet
#3: Kerfuffle
#4: Persnickety
#5: Callipygian
#6: Serendipity
#7: Mellifluous
#8: Discombobulated
#9: Palimpsest
#10: Sesquipedalian

The order of the words changed, “onomatopoeia”, “plethora”, and “juxtapose” disappeared and “mellifluous”, “palimpsest”, and “sesquipedalian” appeared.

Out of the original list I knew four: “defenestration ”, “onomatopoeia”, “plethora”, and “juxtapose”. Out of the new ones I know “palimpsest”.

Four words of out ten or five out of thirteen seems to me a good result taking into consideration that I never learned English nor lived in any English-language country.

[w1k0]

I checked the words from the list presented in the post #4 using my computer dictionaries. Out of ten I found one in two dictionaries:

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 4th Ed.

ginormous
gi·nor·mous /dʒaɪ'nɔːməs US -'nɔ:r-/ adj BrE informal
[Date: 1900-2000; Origin: gigantic + %enormous%]
extremely large
= huge
>ginormously adv

Concise Oxford English Dictionary

ginormous
■ adjective Brit. informal extremely large.

Origin
1940s (orig. military sl.): blend of giant and enormous.

[w1k0]

Round #2; List by w1k0

A confuzzled lingweenie phonecrastinated a call crying “Woot!” because his losing gription car got into a ginormous skid on a slickery snirt reminding him a cognitive displaysia felt because he forgot to change the tires so today’s chillax falls through.
(40 words)

The Translation

A confused and puzzled person incapable of producing neologisms put off answering the phone crying with a joy and an excitement because his losing friction car which requires new tires got into a gigantic and enormous skid on a wet and icy dirty snow reminding him the feeling he had before he leave the house because he forgot to change these tires so today’s hang out with friends falls through.

[w1k0]

1. I am sure that you are capable to infer yourself the rules of the game played here. It is simple. Someone puts here a list of ten difficult words and then someone else or the same person completes a sentence using these words and publishes it. The shortest sensible sentence wins the round (we count the words separated by spaces).

2. To play the game you have to complete your own sentence or post here some list of ten difficult words as a challenge for the other people and yourself. A proofreading or editing of the sentences published by someone else may be a nice occupation but it is not an autonomous participation in the game. Shortening or correcting the other people’s sentences you improve their results. Doing that you are joining someone else’s team in that particular round.

3. You may play any past round of the game at any time. It is easy. Just try to complete a sentence with the words from this particular list which is shorter than the shortest sentence published here by someone else so far.

4. Do not publish here your own lists of the words. These should be the lists of the words collected by some notable website such as http://www.merriam-webster.com. It is easy to cheat finding some difficult and compact sentence, extracting the words from it, putting them here as a list, and then publishing a ready-made sentence as your own. We do not cheat here!

5. The sentence such as:

I don’t know what “defenestration”, “serendipity”, “onomatopoeia”, “discombobulate”, “plethora”, “callipygian”, “juxtapose”, “persnickety”, “kerfuffle”, and “flibbertigibbet” mean.

counts just 16 words but it is not a winner. Such sentences break the rules so they will be ignored.

6. I remind you that these ten words should be difficult and different so the list of the words such as the following is not valid at all (I am sorry!):

● the
● quick
● brown
● fox
● jumps
● over
● the
● lazy
● dog

7. When you start to play some round put into your post the number of the round and the link to the used list of the words (for example: “Round #1; List by doctorow”). When you continue some round put the number of the round, the link to the list, and the link to the previously winning sentence with the number of the words (for example: “Round #1; List by doctorow; Best: 29 words”).

8. “Verbal Dueling” means that we fight the duels with our sentences and the author of the shortest sensible sentence wins the round. Everyone can publish his or her sentence and everyone can publish some list of the words found in Internet – together with a working link. Do not publish the next list of the words here before at least one person completes and publishes the sentence made up out of the words from the previous list.

So I am inviting you to my game...

***

The following updated rule was added December 18, 2013:

9. When two different sentences completed in the same round count the same number of the words the winning one is the sentence in which the order of the keywords is closer to its order on the original list. To determine that it is enough to count “the sentence’s coefficient”.

For example the sentence from the post #3:

A plethora (5) of flibbertigibbet’s (10) juxtaposing (7) and persnickety (8) kerfuffle (9) discombobulated (4) me so ample that I defenestrated (1) him so his callipygian (6) posterior attained the thoroughfare by serendipity (2) with an uproarious onomatopoeia (3).

has the coefficient:

5/1 + 10/2 + 7/3 + 8/4 + 9/5 + 4/6 + 1/7 + 6/8 + 2/9 + 3/10 ≈ 18.215

while the hypothetical sentence with the same order of the keywords as its order on the original list has the coefficient:

1/1 + 2/2 + 3/3 + 4/4 + 5/5 + 6/6 + 7/7 + 8/8 + 9/9 + 10/10 = 10.000

and it wins the contest because the sentence’s coefficient equal 10.000 is the lowest one.

For the comparison the sentence with the reverse order of the keywords has the coefficient:

10/1 + 9/2 + 8/3 + 7/4 + 6/5 + 5/6 + 4/7 + 3/8 + 2/9 + 1/10 ≈ 22.218

and it is the worst one because the sentence’s coefficient equal 22.218 is the highest one.

Two substantially different sentences with the same number of the words and with the same coefficients are equally good. The term “substantially different” means that these sentences have different meanings because when the meaning, the number of the words, and the coefficients are the same in the case of some two sentences the latter is merely a slight modification of the former so it is a plagiarism in the worst case or a reinvention in the best one.

The following updated rule was added December 22, 2013:

10. It is not necessary at all but it is nice to put below your cryptic completed sentence its translation in plain English.

***

I wait at least three days (at least 72 hours) after I publish the list of the words and before I publish my completed sentence. It is only me. You may publish a found list of the words and then your completed sentence without any delay.

[w1k0]

Round #3; List by w1k0

Favorite Words From Foreign Languages

#1: Karaoke
Japanese
Karaoke, the beloved/hated entertainment that involves non-professional singers performing without live bands, has a poetic-sounding origin: “empty orchestra.”
It comes from the Japanese kara (“empty”) + ōke, short for ōkesutora (“orchestra”).

#2: Kerfuffle
Scottish Gaelic
Kerfuffle means “disturbance or fuss,” often describing a situation that’s received more attention than it deserves.

#3: Chutzpah
Yiddish
Chutzpah comes from the Yiddish khutspe, meaning “impudence.”
In American English, chutzpah describes a particular kind of nerve, or gall. It refers to the supreme self-confidence that allows a person to do or say things that may seem shocking to others.

#4: Kowtow
Chinese
To kowtow is to agree too easily or eagerly to do what someone else wants you to do, or to obey someone with power in a way that seems weak.
It comes from the Chinese kòutóu – kòu (“to knock”) plus tóu (“head”) – and originally referred to kneeling and touching one’s head to the ground as a salute or act of worship to a revered authority.

#5: Schadenfreude
German
The German Schaden means “damage”; Freude means “joy”; the English Schadenfreude means “enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.”

#6: Apparatchik
Russian
Nowadays, apparatchik is generally used as a mild insult for a blindly devoted official, follower, or member of an organization, such as a corporation or political party.

#7: Boondocks
Tagalog
Boondocks (and boonies) both mean “a rural area,” particularly one considered backward, dull, or unsophisticated.

#8: Ketchup
Malay
This all-American condiment started out as a spicy, fermented fish sauce in Malaysia.
That version, known as kěchap, made its way first to Europe and then to the New World, where tomatoes eventually became the defining ingredient.

#9: Juggernaut
Hindi
A juggernaut is something (such as a force, campaign, or movement) that is huge and powerful and can’t be stopped.

#10: Hazard
Arabic
In English, hazard eventually came to name any chance, risk, or source of danger.

[w1k0]

A typical post on every forum all over the world looks like:

THX

or:

LOL

so I am not surprised that “Verbal Dueling – The Game” thread is not too popular here.

***

I completed my sentence for the third round but I am refraining myself from posting it now. To play with me I do not have to say or write anything. I can do that in my mind.

So the third round is still open – the same as the first and the second ones. Sooner or later someone will post here his or her completed sentence and the challenge for the next round. I dug doctorow’s thread after nine years of the silence so I can wait the next nine years until someone else will dig this thread again.

***

Somebody rates all my threads as “terrible” (“1 vote, 1.00 average”). When I compare my “one star” threads with some other “four stars” threads labeled “Unutterably Silly” I am really proud of that single star and I do not need more at all.

Thank you for the great fun and greetings, sockpuppet! I gave the shape and the direction to your life. Do not thank me at all. I do the same to different people all the time and everyday. I simply like to improve their lives. And yours.

[Bilbo1967]

Please go away.

[kindlekitten]

X a thousand

[doubleshuffle]

2NDED.

[Dr. Drib]

This character is now banned and the thread closed.


Don
(Moderator)