Today’s list of the day is “playthings and toys,” which includes things like skipjack, squawker, and whizgig.
Author Archives: Grant Barrett
Alpenglow
Today’s word of the day is alpenglow, a rosy glow that suffuses snow-covered mountain peaks at dawn or dusk on a clear day.
Photo by Rich Murphy. Used here under a Creative Commons license.
Substancestry
Today’s list of the day is substancestry, which contains mysterious and theoretical substances and “stuff” of legend, such as qubit, negawatt, spider silk, and talaria.
Skinker
Today’s word of the day is skinker, someone who draws, pours, or serves liquor, or, the landlord of an alehouse or tavern.
Come, skinker, that frozen-up water come give;
Come, cause this dead heart with the vinejuice relive!
—Poems of Shemseddin Mohammed Hafiz of Shiraz, Vol. III, translated from the Arabic by John Payne (1901, London: Villon Society)
Words second-graders don’t know
Today’s list of the day is “words second-graders don’t know,” by user jennarenn, who gives these instructions:
“1. Tell your second-graders to get ready for their weekly spelling test.
“2. Tell them that the first word is serendipitous.
“3. Watch twenty-five pairs of eyes pop.”
We bet many college sophomores don’t know them, either.
Frumenty
Today’s word of the day is frumenty, a dish made of hulled wheat boiled in milk and seasoned, especially used in England and in some of the southern United States at Christmas. It’s related to frument, which is grain, corn, or wheat, and frumentaceous, an adjective for something resembling or consisting of grain, especially wheat.
Here are two recipes for frumenty from With a Saucepan Over the Sea: Quaint and Delicious Recipes from the Kitchens of Foreign Countries, by Adelaide Keen (1910, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company) and two more from Vegetarian Diet and Dishes, by Benjamin Smith Lyman (1917, Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach).
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