An overcast and rather depressing Monday morning was not brightened for me when I discovered what the Oxford University Press has chosen as its OED Online Word of the Day.
To make it worse, not a single one of my friends, relatives or correspondents has seen fit to make me privy this morning to any interesting, inspiring or significant thoughts which they may have had over the weekend, so that my email today featured only offers from a clergyman's widow in Nigeria, Canadian vendors of oil stocks, and sundry manufacturers of pharmaceuticals in which I have no interest, plus the OED’s 1,685-word message listing in detail, with copious quotations dated from 1386 to 1978, all six uses of the word vomit in its fourteen spellings.
3 comments:
Fourteen spellings? Do tell!
Well, if you insist:
Forms: 4-5 vomyt (5 womyt, vomyght), 5-6 vomyte, 5-7 vomite, 6 vomitte, 6- vomit (6 womit), 7-8 vomitt; 4-6 vomet, 5 -ete, -ette, 6 womeit, 7 vomett. [a. AF. vomit, -ite, OF. vomite (= It., Sp., Pg. vomito), or ad. L. vomit-us, f. vomre: see next.]
And for good measure the definition (as a noun) is: Matter ejected from the stomach by vomiting; = SPEW
You don't want me to list the full text of all sixty-eight illustrative quotations, do you?
As a joke, my father-in-law likes to ask people which is more appropriate in polite conversation: the word "vomit" or the phrase "throw up." To which most people respond with "the phrase 'vomit.'"
To which he then replies, "The horse galloped across the field and vomited up his tail."
Old joke, but really amusing mental picture. ;o)
Post a Comment
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED.
If you do not have a Google/Blogger account, choose the Name/URL option. You can use a pseudonym and you can give a URL as well if you like.