nickromney.com » Humour

Animals on the underground

nickromney — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 03:15:10 +0000

I didn’t realise that, hidden on the map of the London Underground, are pictures of animals, but there are. Looks like you can buy an (expensive) T-shirt with them on.

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words

nickromney — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 01:49:44 +0000

yourDictionary.com has an article on 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words, which is from an American perspective, but interesting to see some of the back-formations (e.g. interpretate for interpret), metathesis (place-switching of sounds e.g. revelant for relevant)

Ordering food in America

nickromney — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 01:29:04 +0000

Dunstan’s tale about being a Brit ordering food in the States made me smile a great deal. Seemingly a study was done about people believing the printed word (Holiday Inn used to have problems with guests staying past check-out time, until they put a notice on the back of the door. Stragglers staying past 12 noon were reduced to something like 2%). I’m similarly tied to the notion that a menu describes the totality of the fare on offer, but next time I order pizza in the States, I’ll consider ordering shredded salami, some mushrooms from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and some baked guava halves as well

Gettysburg Address in Powerpoint

nickromney — Fri, 05 Mar 2004 00:59:59 +0000

Gettysburg address – how it would have been with the aid of Powerpoint.

Goodle Good News

nickromney — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 22:32:54 +0000

Goodle Good News

Entertaining spoof of Google. Cheered me up when I read it!

Googlewhack

nickromney — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 09:26:13 +0000

British author Dave Gorman, fresh from his winning a bet to find 36 other people called Dave Gorman, sat down to write a novel, and instead, found that his website contained a Googlewhack.

The site and the book (“Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure”) describe what a Googlewhack is in quite some detail. Essentially, it’s inputting two search terms (not in quotes) to Google, which yield exactly one result.
Two other points to note:

The words must be underlined (which confirms that they are words recognised in dictionary.com).
The results page must not be a dictionary or wordlist itself.

Some current whacks featuring on the Whack stack are:
isopropanol warthog; subcutaneously telephonist; bathysphere transmogrification

So, armed with only a degree in linguistics, a passion for language, a quiet night at work, and access to Google, I thought I’d see what I could come up with.

Avuncular cubism – 18
Kleptomaniac hippopotamus – 69
Sesquipedalian daedalus – 5
Hippopotamus pantechnicon – 28
Egregious oligarchy – 1070
Toothsome weathervane – 5
Logarithmic baboon – 264
Overarching pantechnicon – 19
Brusque weathervane – 16
Tickling pantechnicon – 5
Trapezoid nepotism – 17
Toothsome epistemology – 8
Garrulous weathervane – 11
Pendulous sesquipedalia – 2
Toothsome epicentre – 5
Eschatological baboon – 32 !!!
Baboon renewal – 920 ???
Eschatological drainpipe – 3
Eschatological rhythm – 6
Eschatological weathervane- 4
Eschatological haematology – 1. Check Eschatological haematology in Google, or go to the Oxford University Gazette page which contains it.

Buoyed by my success, it was but a hop, skip and a jump to find two more within twenty minutes:

Kleptomaniac triskaidekaphobia Check Kleptomaniac triskaidekaphobia in Google, or go to theSyd the Kyd page which contains it.

Trapezoid lychgate: Check Trapezoid lychgate in Google or go to the Herefordshire.gov page which contains it.

Ah well, it filled a whole hour, and satiated my need to search for any more whacks. However, the book was extremely well-written, and very funny to boot. Highly recommended.