Word Definitions & Origins
toad eater, originally, a charlatan's attendant who pretended to eat toads (thought to be poisonous) to prove the charlatan could expel the poison. This term evoled into the familiar...
toady (TOE dee) noun One who panders to the wealthy or influential; a servile flatterer. syn. -- sycophant.
I guess these days we'd call them a groupie or part of an entourage. Whether you could get a groupie to eat toads, I couldn't say. But I wouldn't put it past them.
Here's a word I'll toss in, not because it's so useful, but because it's so odd. I mean, how common is this?
formication (fore muh KAY shun) noun A spontaneous abnormal sensation of ants or other insects running over the skin.
Let's set the record straight on another word people like to misuse. Though really not all that often because it's obscure, but often enough in the rare instances it is used. That word is...
Vomitorium. Wags and jokesters like to use it as if it means a room where you go to throw up, retch, puke, regurgitate... in other words vomit. Wrong. A vomitorium is a passageway. Vomit comes from Latin and is related to "discharge." A doorway or passageway is for the discharge of people from one place to another. This would be a vomitory (doorway) or a vomitorium (passageway, like a hall).
hoi polloi (hoy pe LOY) noun The common people viewed from a position of social or intellectual advantage or privilege.
This is another one of those terms I hear people being mixed up about, often thinking it means the elite, the upper class, the rich and powerful, the upper crust. But it means the opposite; the masses, the rabble, the ruck, the great unwashed, the many-headed, the plebs, the common folk, et al. I can only guess these people confuse hoi polloi as being somehow related to...
hoity-toity (hoy tee TOY tee) adj. Arrogant, pompous, pretentious.
In other words, snobbery and snobs. Who are often the elite, the upper crust, etc.
avuncular (ah VUNK you lar) adj. Of, like, or pertaining to an uncle.
This may have good or bad connotations depending how you feel about your uncle. Or whether your uncle is a great guy or something of a jerk. I think most people would think uncles leave a warm fuzzy feeling, but it could be cold and hairy instead.
callipygian (kal eh PIJ ee-en) adj. Having a beautifully proportioned buttocks.
zaftig (ZAF tig, ZAF tik) adj. slang Full-bosomed.
These are the words you might use in polite company rather than the vulgarisms you'd usually use. You know, when a caboose is on rails, ass refers to a pack animal, butts are cigarette remains, and back means the lumbar region. When melons are fruit, jugs are ewers, hooters are owls, boobs are fools, ta-tas are farewells in London, knockers alert you to visitors at the front door, the front porch is attached to the house and when it's built it's done by carpenters and not mother nature, and where boxes may be stacked.
irascible (ih RAS ih bul) adj. Easily provoked or angered.
This word is the formal equivalent of the everyday words and expressions testy, cranky, touchy, cantankerous, peevish, hot-headed, quick-tempered, thin-skinned or having a hair trigger or a short fuse. Which might be why you don't hear it very often. Who needs it when we have these more colorful versions. Like the related phrase "flying off the handle." Though when examined it's hard to figure out how such an expression came about. Can people actually fly off handles? Handles of what? It's rather nonsensical when you think about it.
I saw where Family Feud lumped donkey and mule together as a single answer. A donkey, an ass and a burro are the same, but a mule is something altogether different.
mule (myool) noun a sterile hybrid of a male ass and a female horse.
Compare that to the less common:
hinny (HIN ee) noun a sterile hybrid of a female ass and a male horse.
There are no sons and daughters of mules or hinnies. It's a dead end. They're bigger than donkeys and smaller than horses. What exactly the advantages are to these animals, I don't know. Perhaps being headstrong, as in stubborn as a mule. I have heard you can't ride a mule into battle, they won't co-operate. Whether that is a sign of intelligence on the mule's part, or a sign of a cavalry horse's bravery, I couldn't tell you.
Perhaps there's a joke somewhere in all this. What do you get when you cross a horse with an ass? A stubborn horse's ass. Not too good, sorry.
On the other hand, I will admit to a mistake I used to make, that a pony is a young horse. Not so. A young horse is a colt. A pony is a fully grown horse of a small breed, less than 14 hands tall. Though many folks, some cowboys for instance, call any horse you saddle up and ride a pony. And so, the Pony Express.
aspersion (a SPER zhun) noun 1. Slander, a calumnious report or remark. 2. The act of defaming or slandering.
How often have you heard anyone protest about someone "casting aspersions on their character"? Why is it aspersions always seem to be cast? Can they also be tossed, thrown, lobbed, floated or distributed in some other way? Is this casting like casting a shadow or casting for fish with a rod and reel? And why does it seem always to be plural, aspersions, rather than just one aspersion?
Actually there is a reason, but it goes to another meaning of the word. Which is: aspersion, n. 3. A sprinkling: especially, a baptism by sprinkling.
This means you can have an aspersion (sprinkling, casting) of aspersions (slanders, defamations) against someone's character. They just naturally go together, sort-of. I'm sure that's all crystal clear as mud. Though I rather imagine the reader would also like to know what calumnious means. I'll get to that some other time.
The Nazis gave propaganda a bad name.
I imagine many people will think that statement is a joke, but it's not. Consider, the Third Reich itself called it the Propaganda Ministry. They wouldn't have called it that if propaganda implied misinformation and lies as it does to many today. Here's what it really means:
propaganda (pro pa GAN da) noun Speech intended to convince.
Then Goebbels got hold of it and its never been the same. Now folks infer it being something like...
sophistry (SOF is tree) noun A plausible but misleading or fallacious argument.
By the original definition advertising and political speech is propaganda, and so is a sunday sermon. Honesty and accuracy had nothing to do with it. It's a shame because now we have two words people use for sophistry and nothing for what propaganda really means.
If only they'd have called it the Sophistry Ministry to begin with. Ironically, the Nazis were more forthright in calling it propaganda rather than the euphemistic terms used today, such as the Information Ministry, public relations, or press secretary.
wise (waez) adj. 1.having wisdom. 2. knowing, informed.
I don't think I've introduced the reader to a new word here, far from it. However it is interesting how a word can have more than one definition and, depending which definition the reader infers, it can change a sentence's meaning. Here's what I mean:
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
From Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College by Thomas Gray
If you use definition 1 it's saying "Where it's folly to have wisdom..." On the other hand, definition 2 means something else altogether, "Where it's folly to be informed..." It's the second meaning Gray is using. What we have is the literary version of plausible deniability. Or possibly something in the way Jack Nicholson is often imitated for saying, "You can't handle the truth!"
You can also see that having the full quote, rather than the usual truncated, "ignorance is bliss", makes a big difference as well. I rather imagine the Sir Thomas would agree with Dean Wormer from Animal House, "Son, fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life."