What's up with that?

APRIL 14, 2012

Don’t be VEXED when you read this. . . .

This is the first post I’m adding to the WordPress site directly. It’s sort of a test run and I’m tempting fate in a way by choosing the word vexed to do this with. So what happened to make me try this little move to WordPress in the first place?

One of the tough things about staying up to date is that you can never rest and simply produce things that you love. I know that sounds silly but I spend so much time learning how to use Postrous, Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, Facebook, Facebook Pages, Mail Chimp, and a whole slew of other services that it ends up eating into my time WAY too much. It’s a great bit of experience but enough is enough. I’d much rather have one stable long-term service than a bunch of constantly changing short-term solutions.

When I started using Postrous I thought I had found the perfect solution. It’s sharing style was smooth and easy to use and it was so streamlined and well organized that I couldn’t help but be infatuated with it. It seduced me away from Google Blogger. Over time though a lot of little problems started turning up. And I was VEXED!

The sharing functions on Postrous often failed and blogposts did’t get where they were supposed to go. The posts, once sent to Facebook or other sources, couldn’t be shared or distributed by readers easily and it limited the effectiveness of what I was trying to do. Hell, Postrous doesn’t even support a spell checker! Come on!

So this little post is my first venture into WordPress for making the Vocabulary Blog a more stable and better experience for users! I really hope you like it!

I don't know why my wife was so deeply vexed by the whole situation. I was drunk when it happened anyway.

vexed |vekst|adjective1 [ attrib. ] (of a problem or issue) difficult and much debated; problematic:

the vexed question of exactly how much money the government is going to spend.

2 annoyed, frustrated, or worried: I’m very vexed with you!

DERIVATIVES

vexedly |ˈveksədlē|adverbvex |veks|verb [ with obj. ]make (someone) feel annoyed, frustrated, or worried, esp. with trivial matters: the memory of the conversation still vexed him | (as adj. vexing) : the most vexing questions for policymakers.• archaic cause distress to: thou shalt not vex a stranger.

DERIVATIVES vexer noun, vexingly adverb

ORIGIN late Middle English: from Old French vexer, from Latin vexare ‘shake, disturb.’

Looks like this is the follow up to yesterday's "laugh" image. Cry has a long list of information in it's dictionary entry. I've cut it down to the particular meaning, the most general meaning, which is shown on the card. 

verb ( cries, crying, cried ) [ no obj. ]

shed tears, esp. as an expression of distress or pain: don't cry—it'll be all right | [ with obj. ] : you'll cry tears of joy.

• shout or scream, esp. to express one's fear, pain, or grief: the little girl fell down and cried for her mommy.

ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense ‘ask for earnestly or loudly’): from Old French crier (verb), cri(noun), from Latin quiritare ‘raise a public outcry,’ literally ‘call on the Quirites (Roman citizens) for help.’

As far as illustrations of "laugh" go. This one is a little mean spirited. It's a bit more like "laugh at." 

verb [ no obj. ]

make the spontaneous sounds and movements of the face and body that are the instinctive expressions of lively amusement and sometimes also of contempt or derision: she couldn't help laughing at his jokes | helaughed out loud | [ with direct speech ] : she laughed, “Not a chance.”

• (laugh at) ridicule; scorn.

• (laugh something off) dismiss something embarrassing, unfortunate, or potentially serious by treating it in a lighthearted way or making a joke of it.

• (be laughing) informal be in a fortunate or successful position: if next year's model is as successful, Ford will be laughing.noun

1 an act of laughing: she gave a loud, silly laugh.

2 (a laugh) informal a thing that causes laughter; a source of fun, amusement, or derision: that's a laugh, the idea of you cooking a meal! | she decided to play along with him for a laugh .

• a person who is good fun or amusing company: I like Peter—he's a good laugh 

ORIGIN Old English hlæhhan, hliehhan, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German lachen, also tolaughter.

verb ( deifies, deifying, deified ) [ with obj. ] (usu. be deified)

worship, regard, or treat (someone or something) as a god: she was deified by the early Romans as a fertility goddess.DERIVATIVESdeification |ˌdēəfiˈkāSHən|nounORIGIN Middle English (in the sense ‘make godlike in character’): from Old French deifier, fromecclesiastical Latin deificare, from deus ‘god.’

Watch out for the hy in rHYthm.  The spelling of this word is pretty tricky. 

nouna strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound: Ruth listened to the rhythm of his breathing.

• the systematic arrangement of musical sounds, principally according to duration and periodic stress.

• a particular type of pattern formed by such arrangement: guitar melodies with deep African rhythms.

• a person's natural feeling for such arrangement: they've got no rhythm.

• the measured flow of words and phrases in verse or prose as determined by the relation of long and short or stressed and unstressed syllables.

• a regularly recurring sequence of events, actions, or processes: the twice daily rhythms of the tides.

• Art a harmonious sequence or correlation of colors or elements.DERIVATIVESrhythmless adjectiveORIGIN mid 16th cent. (also originally in the sense ‘rhyme’): from French rhythme, or via Latin fromGreek rhuthmos (related to rhein ‘to flow’).

The dictionary entry for this word is SO long, that I think I'm going to have to repost it down the line with some variations to meet all the interesting entries that use this term. 

For now, this image illustrates the basic noun and verb forms. For Japanese students, watch out for this term. In Japan the name of the game is "Catchball" not "Catch." This might be a fun error correction to put out there for your students. 

 verb ( past and past participle caught |kôt| ) [ with obj. ]1 intercept and hold (something that has been thrown, propelled, or dropped): she threw the bottle into the air and caught it again.

noun1 an act of catching something, typically a ball.• an amount of fish caught: a record catch of 6.9 billion pounds of fish.• [ in sing. ] informal a person considered attractive, successful, or prestigious and so desirable as a partner or spouse: I mistakenly thought he would be a good catch.

ORIGIN Middle English (also in the sense ‘chase’): from Anglo-Norman French and Old Northern French cachier, variant of Old French chacier, based on Latin captare ‘try to catch,’ from capere ‘take.’

I don't play a lot of video games but when I do, I see this word a lot. If you check out games like Infinity Blade, or the Dark Meadow, the hot series on the iPad you'll see a great example of a game that uses melee. 

melee |ˈmāˌlā, māˈlā|(also mêlée )

noun

a confused fight, skirmish, or scuffle: several people were hurt in the melee.

• a confused mass of people: the melee of people that was always thronging the streets.ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from French mêlée, from an Old French variant of meslee (see medley) .

adjective

characterized by, involving, or causing excruciating pain or suffering: a torturous eight weeks in their prison camp.DERIVATIVEStorturously adverbORIGIN late 15th cent.: from Anglo-Norman French, from torture ‘torture.’usage: Tortuous and torturous have different core meanings. Tortuous means ‘full of twists and turns’ or ‘devious, circuitous’: both paths were tortuous and strewn with boulders. Torturous is derived from torture and means ‘involving torture or excruciating pain’. Torturous should be reserved for agonized suffering; it is not a fancy word for ‘painful’ or ‘discomforting,’ as in I found the concert torturous because of the music's volume.

The verb usage of excise has another meaning, to remove as in a surgery like a tumor being excised from the body. This illustration covers the noun form and the related verb form. 

noun |ˈekˌsīz| [ usu. as modifier ]

a tax levied on certain goods and commodities produced or sold within a country and on licenses granted for certain activities: excise taxes on cigarettes.verb |ikˈsīz, ek-| [ with obj. ] (usu. as adj. excised)charge excise on (goods): excised goods.ORIGIN late 15th cent. (in the general sense ‘a tax or toll’): from Middle Dutch excijs, accijs, perhaps based on Latin accensare ‘to tax,’ from ad- ‘to’ + census ‘tax’ (see census) .