Obnubilate – Wordplay Wednesday™ 11/13/2019

A Word of Doubtful Clarity 

No need to adjust screen--it's a fuzzy dinner!

Everything a little fuzzy during the Holidays? We have a word for that …

OBNUBILATE (äb nōō’bɘ lāt’) vt. – to make unclear, indistinct, vague, etc. [memories obnubilated by the passage of time] (n. – obnubilation). [WW #242]

To be serious, I can think of no instance in fiction or non-fiction that I would use this word. However, I’ll bet you can! Perhaps I’m not in a creative mood.

Don’t let me stop you from turning your writing into genius prose this week, to use obnubilate in an inventive turn of phrase.

Perhaps your murder mystery character babbled to the investigating officer, to the point of obnubilation. Or (in real life) your student struggled to qualify his/her essay POV, with obnubilated results. (Return the paper with obnubilated scribbled in the margin notes and watch with concealed amusement as confusion plays over the student’s face. A great learning experience!)

Word Challenge: OBNUBILATE. It’s awkward and ambiguous while defining the indefinable … a wonderful challenge as you fit obnubilate into your week of incisive writings.

Learning knows no prejudices or boundaries, and it isn’t fattening! Expanding your mind is a no-cost, simple joy. Do you feel that way too? What’s your inspiration? Share your creative genius and Wordplay Wednesday comments below.

Write first for yourself … only then can you write for others. (L.Rochelle) 

Cheers to learning a new word on Wordplay Wednesday!

@PenchantForPen

@Irishwriter

[LinDee Rochelle is a writer and editor by trade, and an author by way of Rock & Roll. She has published two books (of three) in her Blast from Your Past series about pioneering R&R Radio DJs. True behind-the-mic tales make GREAT Holiday and anytime Gifts available on Amazon (eBook and print): Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959; and Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties. Coming soon … The Psychedelic Seventies!]

Note: Dictionary definitions are quoted from Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

Endnote: FYI – All links in the PFP site are personally visited, verified, and vetted. Most are linked to commonly accessed sites of reputable note. However, as with everything cyber-security, use at your own discretion.

E-N-Dzzzzzzzz  

Banausic – Wordplay Wednesday™ 11/06/2019

Turn Ho Hum into Ho, Ho, Ho! 

She waved her hand at the adequate but limp landscape brushwork of the solitary tree in a meadow. Turning bored eyes to her friend, she commented lazily, “REAlly, how …

BANAUSIC (bɘ nôʹsik, -zik) adj. – 1) merely mechanical, 2) materialistic, 3) mundane or utilitarian.(For artisans or mechanics) [WW #241]

The dictionary suggests banausic is applied chiefly to artisans or mechanics; I get the artisan description—can’t you just hear the conversation in an upscale art gallery—but dahling, it’s so banausic! (Don’t forget the drawn-out “ah” sound.) But I’m hard-put to relate it to mechanics … at least, not in the auto industry.

Banausic may be more at home in advanced mechanical applications—the kind a friend at a Holiday party goes on about while we nod with glazed eyes. But let’s stop at what it is and focus on what it is not!  

No matter your activities, the Holiday season is hardly the time for banausic tasks. Go beyond the rote and swing into creativity with an eye toward the New Year—especially in your writing. Originality always pays off in business and pleasure.

Word Challenge: BANAUSIC. Make your novel characters … well … novel, as you feed banausic into their conversations, or give your editorial writings a novel word to play with, in your week of anything but banausic writings.

Learning knows no prejudices or boundaries, and it isn’t fattening! Expanding your mind is a no-cost, simple joy. Do you feel that way too? What’s your inspiration? Share your creative genius and Wordplay Wednesday comments below.

Write first for yourself … only then can you write for others. (L.Rochelle) 

Cheers to learning a new word on Wordplay Wednesday!

@PenchantForPen

@Irishwriter

[LinDee Rochelle is a writer and editor by trade, and an author by way of Rock & Roll. She has published two books (of three) in her Blast from Your Past series about pioneering R&R Radio DJs. True behind-the-mic tales make GREAT Holiday and anytime Gifts available on Amazon (eBook and print): Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959; and Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties. Coming soon … The Psychedelic Seventies!]

Note: Dictionary definitions are quoted from Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

Endnote: FYI – All links in the PFP site are personally visited, verified, and vetted. Most are linked to commonly accessed sites of reputable note. However, as with everything cyber-security, use at your own discretion.

E-N-Dzzzzzzzz  

Eidolon - Boo! – Wordplay Wednesday™ 10/30/2019

Is it Good? Is it Bad? I’m so scared … 

We tend to ignore, refuse to believe, or fear, that which we cannot touch or see. Is it good or bad? It all depends …

EIDOLON (ī doʹlɘn) n. – 1) an image without real existence, phantom, apparition; *2) an ideal person or thing (adj. –  eidolic). [WW #240;*Americanism]

Phantom of the Opera … Patrick Swayze in Ghost … the Bell Witch … all could arguably be seen (or not) as an eidolon, in its original definition. I’m not quite sure how to take the second description, however. The two aren’t just unrelated, they’re polar opposites!  

Of course, Webster might argue there is no such thing as an “ideal person”—à la apparition—in which case, I would have to agree. Although, “idol” once tentatively served in the eidolon capacity; the dictionary now relegates that definition to obsolete/archaic, keeping idol as an image of a god or other worshipped object of reverence.

For our purpose and weekly fun—after all, it’s Halloween!—we’ll focus on (or try to) that which is not there. The problem comes in when our eyes perceive an eidolon, but our minds are confused by its ethereal existence. Is it or isn’t it real?

From seances to exorcisms, haunted houses to a watery oasis in the desert … how can we trust what we hear
or see? It could be a broad daylight welcome vision, or a famously inky night, wispy clouds floating across a blood-red full moon. Turning to surreptitiously peek over your shoulder, the hackles rise on the back of your neck. You shiver uncontrollably, feeling an ice-cold chill blow across your cheek. What—who—is that shadowy figure gliding behind? You try to run, but your feet don’t get the message. Spinning around again to confront your fear, the eidolon faded into the night.

On Halloween eidolons are often unfriendly, but they can be sociable, insistent and irritating … and some even have a sense of humor. Think Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) in Ghost … Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) to Molly (Demi Moore) about Sam, “I don't know you. I don't know Sam but let me tell you what he did to me. He kept me up all night singing ‘I'm Henry the Eighth I Am.’”

Word Challenge: EIDOLON. Will you face your fears this Halloween and slip eidolon into your week of spooky, unearthly writings, with trepidation or a humorous twist?

Learning knows no prejudices or boundaries, and it isn’t fattening! Expanding your mind is a no-cost, simple joy. Do you feel that way too? What’s your inspiration? Share your creative genius and Wordplay Wednesday comments below.

Write first for yourself … only then can you write for others. (L.Rochelle) 

Cheers to learning a new word on Wordplay Wednesday!

Wicked Witch of the West       

@PenchantForPen

@Irishwriter

[LinDee Rochelle is a writer and editor by trade, and an author by way of Rock & Roll. She has published two books (of three) in her Blast from Your Past series about pioneering R&R Radio DJs. True behind-the-mic tales make GREAT Holiday Gifts available on Amazon (eBook and print): Book 1 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959; and Book 2 – Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The Swinging Sixties. Coming soon … The Psychedelic Seventies!]

Note: Dictionary definitions are quoted from Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

Endnote: FYI – All links in the PFP site are personally visited, verified, and vetted. Most are linked to commonly accessed sites of reputable note. However, as with everything cyber-security, use at your own discretion.

E-N-Dzzzzzzzz