Sunday 25 July 2004

Six mugs

mug n. drinking vessel
mug n. face
mug n. gullible person
mug v.i. study hard
mug v.t. rob with violence
mug v.i. make faces, esp before audience or camera

That's not very interesting, really, is it? I think I've been overdoing this word thing lately; I have carelessly started some extremely tedious discussions about words, and found myself surfing websites consisting entirely of such discussions. There's a whole world of screaming boredom out there among the language buffs.

I suppose it's a kind of addiction we have: "I've struggled against it, Phoebe, but it's no good, I just can't help myself, I've got to go and buy another dictionary, that'll be the fourth this month..."

So why did I post this stuff? Well, just because I was charmed by this translated phrase I saw, and had to find an excuse to record it:
...sa petite frimousse éveillée...
...her wide-awake little mug...

A mugwump sounds like some kind of fool. Not at all: he is a great man who holds aloof from party politics (from the Algonquin mugquomp, a great chief).

Oh, and the French have a word for a collection of mugshots: trombinoscope.

I suppose all the above is pretty damn dull, too. I really must try to get out more.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't stop blogging about words, Tony. Somebody has to keep people interested in them. Might as well be you.