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: silveryaspen

Pronunciation: de - fund - shun - als

Sentence: Humans have been inventing ways to store funds of knowledge from before the stone age to the present. Stone carvings, paper, books, pictures, vinyl records, tapes, disks, computer memory banks, data servers, ipods, blackberries, etc. We keep them all, though we seldom use the archaic ones. Was the first cosmic fund of knowledge written in the stars? Will the last fund of cosmic knowedge be written in the stars? Perhaps all these others in-between, are, were, and always have been, mere defundtionals.

Etymology: Fund, Defunctional. Fund: sources of things stored or saved. Defunctional: no longer used, operative, or functional.

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COMMENTS:

philosophical one - bigveg, 2008-03-14: 03:04:00

So, what you are saying is that every idea ever related by mankind are somehow stored in the universe. The last words spoken by Amelia Earhart may be recorded in the sand of an isolated atoll somewhere, the waves of her voice rearranging the particles of sand that lay beneath her contorted face as she met her end. The lost works of Chaucer could be reclaimed from the atomic impressions remaining on a rotting desk from the 14th century. The library at Alexandria could be reconstructed from a million fragments of ashen scrolls with the ability to distinguish ink from charcoal, and vast arrays of computers to reassemble the fragments into complete manuscripts. Every electromagnetic conveyance of media ever produced can be reclaimed from the stars if we can overcome the speed of light in order to catch up to it, as it travels through the vast emptiness of space. The only idea that can never be successfully reclaimed is the idea that is never communicated, so long as we can use our intellect in pursuit of the technology to recover that information. The possibility of mankind is limitl...whoops, gotta go, American Idol is on! - Banky, 2008-03-14: 10:23:00

Nice word :) - Banky, 2008-03-14: 10:24:00

Maybe planned obsolescence is in our DNA? - arrrteest, 2008-03-14: 13:21:00

I think there may be a book in this one - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-14: 14:03:00

Wow! Never expected so many comments on my two QUEST-tionings! It was asked in a much lighter vein than it was received! Banky, you read so much more into those two little questions!!! But here's another question for what ever you all want to see in it. Do our subconscious minds tap into an ethereal storage bank of all knowledge in the universe, then come up with bits of knowledge and solutions our conscious minds couldn't find ... and then place that in our conscious minds? I'll leave the book writing up to Banky and Nosila. I just have questions ... for me, life is but a quest for more about all things. I'm just grateful for how much easier it is to access all information in all the various media! But at the rate it is growing ... there is no such thing as all-knowing among us mere mortals. You're right Jabberwocky ... a book ... maybe many books!!! (wink/big smile). - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 16:58:00

Nice word;thought provoking sentence! - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-16: 17:03:00

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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: yelloweyes

Pronunciation: ar-key-ah-prawk-tem

Sentence:

Etymology:

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Created by: galwaywegian

Pronunciation: ann teh wot eee

Sentence: the sound of the antechwhatee scratched along, every now and then receding so you could make out a strangulated voice crooning something about gramma.

Etymology: antiquity, tech, what

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COMMENTS:

What a witty clever pun! Nice one! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 23:52:00

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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: Jamagra

Pronunciation: ster'/e/o/lith

Sentence: Jacob cringed in embarrassment at every soccer game. When would his parents get rid of that stereolithic camera they had and get with the digital age? It was completely humiliating... especially when the flip flash blinded his teammates just as they tried to score a goal.

Etymology: stereo - three dimensional (as in stereoscopic photography & stereotype print); also stereophonic sound reproduction + monolith - something formed of a single slab of stone

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COMMENTS:

Innovative etymology and word. Well done! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:03:00

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Created by: rombus

Pronunciation: tek - no - sore

Sentence: As time marches on, we are creating new media but the list of technosaurs is increasing. I have boxes of VHS tapes and records and even though I can still play them, they are not as clear and vibrant as the CD's and DVD's that I now have.

Etymology: Technology (Mechanisms for distributing messages, including postal systems, radio and television broadcasting companies, telephone, satellite and computer networks) + Dinosaur (extinct reptiles, also used as a term to denote something old)

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COMMENTS:

So appealing! How the kid in all of us loves our technosaurs! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-07: 14:47:00

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Created by: Ekovox

Pronunciation: Ex-prise

Sentence: He uttered complete exprise at realizing he lost on Jeopardy.

Etymology:

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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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