Sunday, December 05, 2004

A Vocabulary Lesson

Floccinaucinihilipilification: The action of judging something as worthless.
It is derived from four Latin words: Floccus - Tuft of wool(figuratively: worthless, insignificant), Nauci - Trivial, Nihil - Nothing (as in: nil, annihilate, nihilism), and Pilus - A hair(fig: small, insignificant).

The word is believed to have been originally coined as a humorous attempt at creating the longest word in the English language by combining the 4 words and adding "fication". At 29 letters, it indeed was the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary 1st Edition, however, a new word, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a lung disease caused by inhaling volcanic ash), has taken over the title.

The earliest recorded use of the word was in 1741 by William Shenstone: “I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money”, but more recently was used by Senator Jesse Helms in 1999 to comment on the demise of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: “I note your distress at my floccinaucinihilipilification of the CTBT”.

Ok, well I think(hope) this marks the end of my rediculously stupid procrastination of starting those late papers/assignments/projects that still need to be handed in, not to mention studying for those four exams I write this week... I guess you could say I floccinaucinihilipilificate schoolwork.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ashley,
I looked up "floccinaucinihilipilificate" online and it's apparently not a word. Are you trying to be clever ? possibly trying to deceive those of us with a bit less terminology ?
One other thing Ash, you've sent me numourus "Blogger Invites" but when I try to create my own account the system doesn't accept my user ID. So until thise problem is rectified I will continue to be anonymous.

Good Day to you

2:41 p.m., December 08, 2004  
Blogger Ash said...

Consider it rectified! You are now the proud owner of your very own blogger account, and the newest Box Office Pages member.

Welcome, Boozy, to our blog!

While I was tempted to make "floccinaucinihilipilificate" your userID, I decided to be nice and instead gave you the name "Kolboynik". Your password's the same as your work password, but 4 characters was too short, so you have to type it in twice.

I can't stop you from changing your name and profile information when you sign in, but I do ask tat you at least consider leaving it the way it is. If you really need to change it, just leave the photograph. Please.

3:47 p.m., December 09, 2004  
Blogger Ash said...

Also, to other boxofficers who have yet to join, I've sent you all invitations on numerous occasions, check your junkmail if you havn't see them, I sent them to everyone I think.

3:51 p.m., December 09, 2004  
Blogger mel said...

I just laughed out loud for about ten minutes at Boozy's profile. I'm trying to remember if I worked Anna McGoldrich's show with him or not. Good times...

6:15 a.m., December 17, 2004  
Blogger Alex said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

2:15 p.m., December 22, 2004  

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