So, who wants to win 1 million Euro?

[Peter B]

  First "fragilised", now "embiggened".  I am flummoxicated.

I can't help with "fragilized," but here's the origin of "embiggen."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast

I see.  I was not aware of the cromulence of "cromulent".  (Or is it cromulentarity?)  My most enthusiastic contrafibularities.

I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

Okay, who left the thesaurus lying around...? 

Having said that, people at the last place I worked came up with an impressive range of alternatives for the adjective of 'investigate': investigative (which I think is the correct word), but also investigational, investigatory and even investigationary.

[Andromeda]

Not a thesaurus, Peter - Blackadder.

[Mag40]

Not a thesaurus, Peter - Blackadder.

 

[gillianren]

I see.  I was not aware of the cromulence of "cromulent".  (Or is it cromulentarity?)  My most enthusiastic contrafibularities.

I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

I do actually argue for the cromulence of "cromulent."  It's a fake word, of course, and meant to sell a specific joke, but it serves a valuable function in the language so far as I'm concerned, and that's all it counts to make it a "real" word.  As for the others, well, my understanding is that Dr. Johnson was obnoxious in real life, and disconcerting his fictional counterpart is fine with me.

[JayUtah]

If your descent rate is slower, your window is higher.

Lower surely? Slower descent rate means you can be lower but still safely abort?

Er, yeah. 

[Peter B]

Not a thesaurus, Peter - Blackadder.

Ah, I see you had a cunning plan...

[Andromeda]

Not a thesaurus, Peter - Blackadder.

Ah, I see you had a cunning plan...

Marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation!

[JayUtah]

I do actually argue for the cromulence of "cromulent."  It's a fake word, of course, and meant to sell a specific joke, but it serves a valuable function in the language so far as I'm concerned, and that's all it counts to make it a "real" word.

I agree.  People who use the language make the language.  Lexicographers are just around to record what happens, not to prescribe usage.  Its antecedent "embiggen" pokes fun at the mechanism by which English contrives new words with prefixes and suffixes, often at the expense of a more suitable existing word.  As such it shares a bench with the baroque "antidisestablishmentarianism," also perfectly cromulent.  Start with a faux root, add an anglicized Latin adjective suffix, give it a context from which its meaning can be inferred, and you have the makings of a new adjective.  Since it has an agreed-upon meaning -- "ironically our counterintuitively valid" -- it thus fits a niche.  This is how the language grows, intentionally or otherwise.  It is as valid as any other word.

[Allan F]

Every time you write "embiggen" I get a Monty Python flashback.

[Glom]

If your descent rate is slower, your window is higher.

Lower surely? Slower descent rate means you can be lower but still safely abort?

That's what I was thinking too.

But since I said it first, I get the T-shirt. :p

[Echnaton]

If your descent rate is slower, your window is higher.

Lower surely? Slower descent rate means you can be lower but still safely abort?

That's what I was thinking too.

But since I said it first, I get the T-shirt. :p

It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

[gillianren]

I agree.  People who use the language make the language.  Lexicographers are just around to record what happens, not to prescribe usage.  Its antecedent "embiggen" pokes fun at the mechanism by which English contrives new words with prefixes and suffixes, often at the expense of a more suitable existing word.  As such it shares a bench with the baroque "antidisestablishmentarianism," also perfectly cromulent.  Start with a faux root, add an anglicized Latin adjective suffix, give it a context from which its meaning can be inferred, and you have the makings of a new adjective.  Since it has an agreed-upon meaning -- "ironically our counterintuitively valid" -- it thus fits a niche.  This is how the language grows, intentionally or otherwise.  It is as valid as any other word.

I confess that I'm a prescriptionist by nature.  However, I would posit that more Americans, at least, recognize "cromulent" than many other words of longer standing.  Heh--just as an example, a lot of people know that "antidisestablishmentarianism" is a word, but how many of them actually know what it means?  So leaving aside that we all understood in context what "cromulent" meant in its first appearance--Mrs. Krabapple's throwaway usage is probably the funniest part--enough people understand it out of context that even prescriptionists must accept its validity.  And there is enough difference between, for example, "cromulent" and "valid" that it serves its purpose as no other word can, and I'm always supportive of words that increase precision.

[Andromeda]

I agree.  People who use the language make the language.  Lexicographers are just around to record what happens, not to prescribe usage.  Its antecedent "embiggen" pokes fun at the mechanism by which English contrives new words with prefixes and suffixes, often at the expense of a more suitable existing word.  As such it shares a bench with the baroque "antidisestablishmentarianism," also perfectly cromulent.  Start with a faux root, add an anglicized Latin adjective suffix, give it a context from which its meaning can be inferred, and you have the makings of a new adjective.  Since it has an agreed-upon meaning -- "ironically our counterintuitively valid" -- it thus fits a niche.  This is how the language grows, intentionally or otherwise.  It is as valid as any other word.

I confess that I'm a prescriptionist by nature.  However, I would posit that more Americans, at least, recognize "cromulent" than many other words of longer standing.  Heh--just as an example, a lot of people know that "antidisestablishmentarianism" is a word, but how many of them actually know what it means?  So leaving aside that we all understood in context what "cromulent" meant in its first appearance--Mrs. Krabapple's throwaway usage is probably the funniest part--enough people understand it out of context that even prescriptionists must accept its validity.  And there is enough difference between, for example, "cromulent" and "valid" that it serves its purpose as no other word can, and I'm always supportive of words that increase precision.

It was Miss Hoover, not Mrs Krabapple.

[Chew]

I agree.  People who use the language make the language.  Lexicographers are just around to record what happens, not to prescribe usage.  Its antecedent "embiggen" pokes fun at the mechanism by which English contrives new words with prefixes and suffixes, often at the expense of a more suitable existing word.  As such it shares a bench with the baroque "antidisestablishmentarianism," also perfectly cromulent.  Start with a faux root, add an anglicized Latin adjective suffix, give it a context from which its meaning can be inferred, and you have the makings of a new adjective.  Since it has an agreed-upon meaning -- "ironically our counterintuitively valid" -- it thus fits a niche.  This is how the language grows, intentionally or otherwise.  It is as valid as any other word.

I confess that I'm a prescriptionist by nature.  However, I would posit that more Americans, at least, recognize "cromulent" than many other words of longer standing.  Heh--just as an example, a lot of people know that "antidisestablishmentarianism" is a word, but how many of them actually know what it means?  So leaving aside that we all understood in context what "cromulent" meant in its first appearance--Mrs. Krabapple's throwaway usage is probably the funniest part--enough people understand it out of context that even prescriptionists must accept its validity.  And there is enough difference between, for example, "cromulent" and "valid" that it serves its purpose as no other word can, and I'm always supportive of words that increase precision.

It was Miss Hoover, not Mrs Krabapple.

Yeah, really. Geez, everybody knows that.

[BazBear]

If your descent rate is slower, your window is higher.

Lower surely? Slower descent rate means you can be lower but still safely abort?

Er, yeah. 

If it's any consolation Jay, I understood "higher" to mean "larger", and when Glom said "lower", I read it as "smaller", which had me scratching my head how he could think that...until it kicked in to my thick skull that he was understandably reading it as meaning altitude.