Verboticisms

Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: ree ty ro sar

Sentence: When Mary reached 65, she knew it was time to stop working. She had become a retirosaur. She no longer spoke the language of her younger boss and co-workers. She could remember working the teletype, a comptometer and her ancient Underwood typewriter had served her well. She had used a dictionary, a thesaurus, knew how to spell; remember people's names; compose grammatically correct sentences and do complex mathematical computations in her head. The staff loved her, but found her to be a quaint walking, talking museum on legs. Yes, Mary had worked for 45 years at the same place and the reason she had been kept on this long was because she knew how to do each job well and she knew where all the bodies were buried!

Etymology: Retire (Withdraw from circulation or participation; cease to work) & Dinosaur (any of numerous extinct terrestrial reptiles of the Mesozoic era)

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COMMENTS:

"Retirosaur!" Just like the Little Red Hen, let Mary say "Not I!" It's sad we can't make the good things that are in the past, more a part of the good things in the present ... glean the best of the both! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-07: 15:48:00

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Created by: youmustvotenato

Pronunciation: rhymes with electronics

Sentence: What's with the retronics? You need to get iPhone 17 already

Etymology: Retro + electronics

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Created by: picabomama

Pronunciation: bay/tuh/vate

Sentence: Kelly's family had long maintained a fine collection of home movies spanning several formerly cutting edge film and video formats. This was a great comfort to Kelly, because although the tragic video of her junior prom still existed, it would take a significant effort to secure the proper equipment to betavate it.

Etymology: excavate- to extract material + beta- the sad and long dead video format

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COMMENTS:

I see what you mean. A fine verb indeed. - stache, 2008-03-14: 17:50:00

Beta-hooked on betavated! Great creation! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:15:00

It is indeed beta to give than receive. Good One, picabomama! - Nosila, 2008-03-14: 23:07:00

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Created by: artr

Pronunciation: hīteknēks

Sentence: Rotary phones, transistor radios, 8-tracks, cassette players, VCRs, dial-up modems... Once the pinnacle of scientific genius, these marvels are now considered hitechniques, ancient relics of technology that has moved on. Some of them still function with a patchwork of adaptations. Most are only good for cannibalizing to keep others of their kind semi-functional.

Etymology: hitech (employing, requiring, or involved in high technology) + antiques (a collectible object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has a high value because of its considerable age)

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Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: pas say im pur fect

Sentence: Young Billy adored his grandfather and loved it when the old geezer told him stories about the passéimperfect. He knew his grandpa made this stuff up, but he loved to hear about the good old days anyway and in particular about the ancient tools they used. He regaled Billy with yarns about how his phone had numbers that went round and round when he stuck his finger in the holes for each set of numbers. Grandpa also told him about watching tv shows on the one channel in black & white and for some reason you needed a rabbit's ears to see the tiny picture better. (As if!) He also told him of cooking without using a microwave (yeah, right!) and buying big blocks of ice to keep everything in the fridge cold (you've got to be kidding!). That crazy Grandpa, he told Billy that a log on was something you put on a bonfire and that a link was something you put on your sleeves to keep the cuffs closed. He said a password was something you spoke into a grill on a door to get into a speak-easy (must be some kind of spellcheck for voice actioned computers?) Billy loved the really old things that Grandpa gave him. Like most boys his age, he loved dinosaurs. He was so excited today, because Grandpa was coming over and bringing him a thesaurus...he couldn't wait to play with it!

Etymology: passé (out of fashion) & past imperfect (grammar: tense imperfect refers to an action that is uncompleted or abandoned)

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COMMENTS:

Rrrawr! Oh no, here comes the fierce Thesaurus Rex!... That's hilarious. - Tigger, 2008-03-14: 03:09:00

All that was makes me curious about what is to come! Great etymology ... conveys the way passages from the old ... lead to the knew ... growing, evolving, better and better ... perfecting! A Perfectly wonderful sentence and word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 17:08:00

Thanks, Tigger & silveryaspen. I always thought the best name for the Toronto NBA Team was TorontoSaurus Wrecks...but no one would listen... - Nosila, 2008-03-14: 23:16:00

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Created by: queenjane75

Pronunciation: un-rad-e-yo

Sentence: Dad gave me an unradio again, want it?

Etymology: a radio that is not rad.

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Created by: Tigger

Pronunciation: /ruhs-teh-kor-ding/

Sentence: George totally enjoyed bringing his 8-year-old son with him to help clean out Grandpa's attic — where Grandpa had stored all of his old electronics and rusticordings. Grandpa had been an avid technophile in his day and the attic was like an obsolete technology museum. When George showed him the Betamax and VHS video tapes, and explained that they were like DVD-R's, Nathan inpected them and asked where the lasers went. Then, when they got to the cassettes and 8-track tapes, George told Nathan that they were what people kept their MP3's on, and then he showed Nathan the rust-colored tape and demonstrated how it turned. Nathan wanted to know how people selected the song they wanted to hear, and so George had to explain Fast Forward and Rewind, while his son struggled with the archaic concept. The vinyl records were next, and when George showed him the groove on the record, and explained how you had to carefully position the needle so as not to scratch the record, Nathan just winced and said, "Wow, Grandpa really had it rough!"

Etymology: Rust[ic] - iron [ferric] oxide; also, a thin layer of ferric oxide was used in most magnetic tapes, floppy disks and early hard discs (Old German, rost "red") + Recording - storage device containing information (from Old French, recorder "testimony")

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COMMENTS:

Yeah, I can no longer play my rustaccordion either! - arrrteest, 2008-03-14: 12:04:00

Will use it a lot! Excellent word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:22:00

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Created by: idavecook

Pronunciation: SOUND IT OUT

Sentence: Man I have this old movie and I really want to watch it, but I only have it on HDRIPDVD, dude, I am so screwed. Even the pawn shops don't have those anymore. Now where's that laser disc?

Etymology: FILM-VHS-BETA-LASER DISC-DVD-HDDVD-BLURAY-DEATH

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COMMENTS:

Rippingly excellent! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:28:00

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Created by: FreakyDeak

Pronunciation: Pro-toe-gram

Sentence: Still using your brain to think? It's such a protogram. Try google, you Neanderthal.

Etymology: Proto(prefix meaning earliest form of something) + Program

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Created by: Banky

Pronunciation: row-set-tah-store-ridge

Sentence: Alex was fixated on amassing the largest collection of rosettastored modern media in the known world. The crown jewels in his menagerie were wax cylinders of Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral", "The Godfather Part III" presented in a swimming pool sized Zoetrope, and the painstaking and somewhat ironic translation of "The Mummy" in handpainted hieroglyphics. He would take various tour groups through the displays, pointing out the 8400 5 1/4" floppy disk download of the Wikipedia database on the left, the Russian woodcarvings of "Rocky IV" (mostly featuring gilded images of Drago as a werebear), and a series of dangerous pop-up books chronicling late 1970s blaxploitation pornography. Twice daily he would present various skits on a weekly rotating schedule; retellings of Judith Light Lifetime movies of the week in comedia dell'arte Punch and Judy shows, morality plays based on "Snow White" with wildly different dwarves, epic poems in which he related the trials and travels of Richard Branson, and on special occasions would present weeklong mesquite fueled smoke-signal presentations of Cormac McCarthy novels. His latest undertaking, an exhibit of "Norbit" on a series of Grecian urns was expected within the week.

Etymology: Rosetta stone - the large granite stone found by the French in 1799 which facilitated the deciperhing of Egyptian hieroglyphics + storage

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COMMENTS:

Great word, awesome sentence! - Jamagra, 2008-03-14: 11:21:00

Great word, awesome sentence! - Jamagra, 2008-03-14: 13:06:00

Wow!! - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-14: 14:16:00

Marvelous! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 17:58:00

Love the use of "rosseta". Great sentence,also. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-16: 17:06:00

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