User:JackofOz/Favourites

Words

The best words in the world

These are peerless words:

angelic
благозвучно - blagozvuchno (Russian for "euphoniously", or "pleasing to the ear")
bric-à-brac
candle
celestial
chisel
cork
crackle
crisp
crone
cryptolect
crystal
cusp
defenestrate
driftwood
dulcet
escroquerie (French for swindling, fraud)
evanescent
fragmént (v.; not frágment, n.)
glacid
glimpse
gloom
grotesque
kindle (but definitely not Kindle)
languor
lilt
limpid
liquid
listopad (the Czech, Polish and Ukrainian word for November and the Croatian and Macedonian word for October; this relates to the falling of leaves, and is surely the saddest word in existence)
marigold
mist
neglect
oil
ooze
picaresque
propinquity
quadrille
quince
rasp
schluschisch (a German dialectal word meaning "picky")
sloth
sludge
spindle
spindrift
spleen
syllepsis
thunder
tusk
vapid
varlet
wisp
yesteryear

The worst words (and phrases) in the world

I shudder whenever I see or hear:

adumbrate
"an alumni" (this is the male or generic plural; the male singular is alumnus, the female singular is alumna, and the female plural is alumnae)
appendectomy (there is no such body part as an "append", and one does not contract "appenditis"; the word is "appendicectomy")
bang to rights
based off of
bottoming
boutique (adj.)
breaks his silence (the latest mindless cliche for any time anyone ever says anything)
care factor
a close-knit (or tight-knit) community (never used of any community until some tragedy occurs)
clot, clotted, clotting, and, worst of all, cloture
... could potentially be ... (quintessential redundancy)
crotch
dead to rights
to be disfellowshipped (!!)
dotcom
an emotional, or a moving, funeral/ceremony etc (written before the event takes place)
end of [sic]
escrow
evaginate (see also "vaginal" below)
every [mother's/parent's ...] worst nightmare
farmgate (in almost all contexts)
"the first ever <whatever>"
fricative, and, even worse, fricativisation
a game changer
garner
give back to the community
give it up for <name>
guttation
hashtag (when used to highlight something that has nothing to do with Twitter)
hire, referring to a human being who's been employed
hit up
hopefully
I'm humbled by <whatever, usually an achievement they've striven mightily for>
[they're] in all sorts (meaning 'in all sorts of trouble')
in lockdown
in the worst way
it is what it is
me on a plate
the most amount of ...
the most number of ...
no less than ...
a non-profit (n.)
obviously (when used to qualify something that is not at all obvious, or very obvious, or just to moronically commence any answer to any question)
off of (see also "based off of")
one-year anniversary (or two-year, x-year ...)
our thoughts and prayers are with you
palimpsest
a perfect storm
phlegm
product (when used in place of the plural "products": I'm waiting on a shipment of pork ~~product~~ products.)
reach out (when used to simply make contact with somebody in circumstances that have no especial emotional content)
the real deal
rockabilly
scab
the science is in
scrimshaw
scroggin
smegma
sophomore
start-up (n.; I mean, there are lots of things that "start up", so which genius decided that the noun can be used solely to refer to small-medium business enterprises?)
swath
taken the world <or some place> by storm
takes no prisoners
tiffin
toilet paper
topping
trope
usufruct
vaginal (when pronounced in the American manner with the accent on the 1st syllable VA-jənəl; the Commonwealth pronunciation, with the accent on the 2nd syllable, və-JY-nəl, is better, but not much; see also "evaginate" above)
webinar
widdershins
your mileage may vary

Favourite definition

Sesquipedelian macropolysyllabification is defined as ... wait for it:

Quaquaversal lucubration about pervicacious torosity and diverticular prosiliency in diatonic formication and chromatic papulation, engendering carotic carmination and decubital nyctalopia, causing borborygmic susurration, teratological urticulation, macroptic dysmimia, bregmatic obstipation, crassamental quisquiliousness, hircinous olophonia and unflexanimous luxation, often produce volmerine cacumination and mitotic ramuliferousness leading to operculate onagerosity and testaceous favillousness, as well as faucal obsonation, paralellepipedal psellismus, pigritudinous mysophia, cimicidal conspurcation, mollitious deglutition and cephalotripsical stultitiousness, resulting despite hesychastic omphaloskepsis, in epenetic opisthography, boustrophedonic malacology, lampadodromic evagination, chartulary cadastration, merognostic heautotimerousness, favaginous moliminosity, fatiscent operosity, temulencious libration and otological oscininity, aggravated by tardigrade inturgescence, nucamentacious oliguria, emunctory sternutation, veneficial pediculation, fremescent dyskinesia, hispidinous cynanthropy, torminal opitulation, crapulous vellication, hippuric rhinodynia, dyspneic nimiety and favillous erethism, and culminating in opisthographic inconcinnity, scotophiliac lipothymia, banausic rhinorrhea, dehiscent fasciculation, oncological vomiturition, nevoid paludality, exomphalic invultuation, mysophiliac excrementatiousness, flagitious dysphoria, lipogrammatic bradygraphy, orectic aprosexia, parataxic parorexia, lucubicidal notation, permutational paronomasia, rhonchial fremitus, specular subsaltation, crapulous crepitation, ithyphallic acervation, procephalic dyscrasia, volitional volitation, piscine dermatology, proleptic pistology, verrucous alopecia, hendecaphonic combinatoriality, microaerophilic pandiculation and quasihemidemisemibreviate illation.

Thanks to Nicolas Slonimsky, in Webster's New World Dictionary of Music (McMillan; Schirmer Books; 1998; ISBN 0-02-862747-4). I kid you doubters not. Look it up.

(9 Jan 2014) I have a new favourite definition:

Language is a non-obligate, mutualistic endo-symbiont
(Morten Christiansen of Cornell University, in New Scientist, quoted by Murray Waldren, "That's Language", Weekend Australian, 1-2 Feb 2003, p. R9)

Favourite word book

"Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words" (ISBN 0246111518) by Josefa Heifetz Byrne is a never-ending source of linguistic joy.

That her father just happened to be my favourite violinist ever, Jascha Heifetz, is just one of those examples of serendipitous synchronicity that my life seems to be full of.

Literature

Favourite playwright

Sir Terence Rattigan

Favourite short story

The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde [1]

Favourite short poems

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Crossing the Bar [2]
Christina Rossetti: Up-Hill [3]
W. E. Henley: Invictus (written 1875, pub. 1888)
W. H. Davies: Leisure (1911)
John Boyle O'Reilly: "Constancy"
- You gave me the key of your heart, my love,
- Then why did you make me knock?
- Oh that was yesterday, saints above!
- And last night - I changed the lock!
Joaquin Miller:
- In men whom men condemn as ill
- I find so much of goodness still.
- In men whom men pronounce divine
- I find so much of sin and blot
- I do not dare to draw a line (in some versions, I hesitate to draw a line)
- Between the two, where God has not.

"Burns and Byron", aka "In Men Whom Men Condemn", Songs of the Sierras, 1871

Music

Favourite composers

I include this list as a compromise. What I'd really like to do is list my favourite musical works, but it would be a very long list. I will do it some day when I have time. However you may be interested in Timeless Tunes for Tuneless Times.

An appearance on my list of composers does not mean that I necessarily like everything they wrote. And a non-appearance does not mean I don't like many of their works (eg. Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Delius, Dvorak, Haydn, Holst, Liszt, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Ravel, Schumann, Stravinsky, Wagner et al).

The following are the composers whose style and musical creativity I consistently resonate with: Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin, Sir Edward Elgar, Gabriel Fauré, Leopold Godowsky, Percy Grainger, Enrique Granados, Leoš Janáček, Aram Khachaturian, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Constant Lambert, Gustav Mahler, Federico Mompou, Ástor Piazzolla, Francis Poulenc, Giacomo Puccini, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Domenico Scarlatti, Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, Richard Strauss, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Giuseppe Verdi and ...

Moritz Moszkowski. I put Moszkowski last, because (a) he is not as well known as I think he should be. Ignacy Jan Paderewski said, "After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano" - high praise indeed; but (b) one of his works in particular is a very serious omission from the repertoire of virtually all concert pianists. This is the Polonaise in D major, Op. 17, No. 1, a fabulous piece of (almost) undiscovered genius and an absolute gem of piano writing that withstands comparison with any polonaise of Chopin (no disrespect intended).

To the best of my knowledge, this Polonaise has only ever been recorded once - on a piano roll by Leopold Godowsky in the 1930s. This was transferred to LP in the 1970s (Everest Records, Archive of Piano Music, Series II; X922). I came across the LP in a record shop about 30 years ago, which is how I know the piece; and I've since obtained a copy of the score, which enables me to have a bit of a go at it myself. But in over 40 years of concert-going, radio listening, LP/CD collecting, and reading, I've never heard or seen any other reference to this magnificent work.

Here it is on YouTube. And here.

It baffles me that the Polonaise in D isn't in the repertoire of every serious classical pianist. And it baffles me that some enterprising pianist hasn't recorded the complete piano works of Moszkowski on CD. After all the great work done by the likes of Michael Ponti, Stephen Hough and others, there's still so much wonderful music just waiting to be re-discovered and recorded. Moszkowski must by now surely be the next cab off the rank. I understand Seta Tanyel started on such a project, but the company went broke before she was even half-way through.

Please contact me if you come across either a CD transfer of the Godowsky recording of the Polonaise in D, or any recordings of the work by other pianists. (I don't realistically expect they could play better than Godowsky but, judging from the printed score, his piano roll recording makes a cut towards the end, and I'd like to hear the full piece as conceived by Moszkowski).

UPDATE (3 Aug 2020): At last, someone else has recorded it. Etsuko Hirose here. A little less full-blooded than Godowsky, but it is played without cuts, so that would make it the premiere recording of the work as Moszkowski conceived it.

Timeless Tunes for Tuneless Times

Favourite film composers

Favourite individual film score

Vertigo by Bernard Herrmann
Schindler's List by John Williams

Favourite opera composer

Giuseppe Verdi

Favourite opera

La bohème by Giacomo Puccini.
- Some snobs insist the Leoncavallo version is better and that anyone who likes the Puccini is insufferably middle class. I say: "Stuff them".

Art

Favourite painting

The Abduction of Psyche (Le Ravissement de Psyché, or L'Enlèvement de Psyché; 1895) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau,

... closely followed by his earlier version Psyche and Amor ...

Acknowledgments to User:Masamage for bringing the 2nd one (the earlier version) to my attention

Sport

Favourite spectator sport

Cricket (naturally)

Cinema

Favourite films

My two all-time favourite films are:

Separate Tables (1957)

vale Deborah Kerr, 16 Oct 2007
vale Delbert Mann, 11 Nov 2007; and

Field of Dreams (1989)

vale W. P. Kinsella, 16 Sep 2016
vale James Earl Jones, 9 Sep 2024

Others I never tire of are listed here.

Favourite film directors

The law

Favourite silly law

The following is part of Australian tax law, specifically s.165-55 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services) Act 1999 [4]:

For the purpose of making a declaration under this Subdivision, the Commissioner may:

a) treat a particular event that actually happened as not having happened; and

b) treat a particular event that did not actually happen as having happened and, if appropriate, treat the event as:

i) having happened at a particular time; and

ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity; and

c) treat a particular event that actually happened as:

i) having happened at a time different from the time it actually happened; or

ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity (whether or not the event actually involved any action by that entity).

Isn't that just wonderful!! The law is most definitely an ass!!

See also Prohibition of death for an equally absurd law.