"Twitterpated" was Tsuwm's worthless word for the day today. And, what a fine word, too! Here is his verbatim discussion:

"[nonce word] love-struck, smitten"

"'Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime. For example: you're walkin' along, minding your own business. You're looking neither to the left nor to the right, when all of a sudden, you run smack into a pretty face. whooowhooo! You get weak in the knees; your head's in a whirl; and then you feel light as a feather, and before you know it, you're walkin' on air.'" - "Friend Owl, Bambi (the movie)"

Now, unfortunately, he dedicated this word to the opening of deer hunting season, but I will forgive him that since he gave us such a wonderful word.

If you don't subscribe to his wwftd, I suggest that you begin today! Some of those words are wonderful.

I'm afrain that another word describes the opening of deer hunting season: inebriated Too damned many idiots think they should grab a gun and a bottle of booze, then head for the woods.

Asa the ex-hunter, who HAS been shot at!

"I have often walked down this street before,
But the pavement always sayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I / Seven stories high
Knowing I'm . ." TWITTERPATED !

(apologies to Alan Jay Lerner and GBS)

quote:

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Asa the ex-hunter, who HAS been shot at!

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Old story, supposedly true but who knows:

After 15 years as a County Fish Warden, the person in charge of enforcing fishing laws and regulations, a man is promoted to County Fish and Game Warden so that his responsibilities now cover hunters as well. Despite a substantial increase in pay, after just one season he turns down the promotion and requests his old job back. When asked why he replies, "In 15 years no one ever mistook me for a fish!"

The problem with obscure words is that we never know much about their derivation. For example, what is the etymology of "twitterpated"? There are pages and pages of the use of the word on Google, yet I couldn't find any dictionary that discussed its derivation. Do you think it comes from "twitter"? That word, according to Online Etymology, is from 1380 and of "imitative origin." Any ideas on how to find the origin of obscure words? Of course, once again, I ask the question of what is really a word. I think I may be coming close to the answer. Perhaps all words should have a known etymology? Or, are there lots of words out there with unknown etymologies?

The OED defines “twitter” as a verb with the principal meaning, “Of a bird: To utter a succession of light tremulous notes; to chirp continuously with a tremulous effect”, and traces it to about 1374. As a noun it means, “A condition of twittering or tremulous excitement (from eager desire, fear, etc.); a state of agitation; a flutter, a tremble. Now chiefly dial”. That certainly sounds like the condition of the love-struck. The OED’s first quote from 1678: “The ancient errant knights Won all their ladies' hearts in fights, And cut whole giants into fritters, To put them into amorous twitters.” I surmise the “-pated” was added to the end to change it into an adjective, much like the adjective “facile” is changed into the verb “facilitate”. I suspect “twitterpate” could be used as a verb.

Yes, Kalleh, you’ve often asked, “What is a word?” I don’t recall if anyone has tried to answer you. If they haven’t, I can understand why. You’ve asked a seemingly simple, but really very difficult, question.

Two definitions from OneLook are “a unit of language that native speakers can identify”, and “a string of bits stored in computer memory”.

M-W gives as one of its definitions, “a speech sound or series of speech sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning without being divisible into smaller units capable of independent use”.

The AHD uses more words to say the same thing: “A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes”.

Wikipedia says “In the linguistic sense, a word is a unit of speech or writing that symbolizes or communicates a meaning. A word may consist of one or more morphemes”. It gives a computing definition, too: “In computing, a word is an integral data type, that is usually (but not always) equal to the size of addresses used by the CPU to access the RAM (that is, pointers)”.

The OED gives the shortest definition I’ve yet seen: “Speech, utterance, verbal expression”.

The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English is a bit wordier. It says a word is “a sound or combination of sounds forming a meaningful element of speech, usually shown with a space on either side of it when written or printed”.

So, in short, a word is any meaningful utterance that comes out of your mouth.

Does that include nonsense syllables of songs, yodels, babblings and gurglings of babies? Deaf people converse with each other through signs, so are signs words? I have a lullaby recorded by Carl Sandburg that consists entirely of nonsense syllables:

Ah yah, tair um bam, boo wah, Kee lay zee day, Nic o lay, mah lun dee. Nic o lay ah poot a way, Nic o lay ah wah mee—Ah yah, tair um bam boo wah, Kee lay zee day, Nic o lay, mah lun dee.

Are they words?

Tinman

Most eloquent post, Tinman! Now, for my definition of twitterpated: Bird-brained!
Falling in love - or lust - causes it!

Asa of the avian mindset

Interesting. As to the origin of "twitterpated":

There seem be quite a few words that use -pated as a suffix, meaning something like "befuddled; confused" (pate is "head", I believe).

• feather-pated: feather-headed; frivolous
• addle-pated: befuddled; confused
• clod-pated: stupid; dull; doltish
• idle-pated: idle-headed; stupid
• rattle-pated: rattle-headed; lacking sense or discretion
• shallow-pated: shallow-brained
• shatter-pated: disordered or wandering in intellect

In the day when these words and constructions were common and current,* wouldn't it have been natural to create "twitterpated" too, in exactly the same way?

My guess is that "twitterpated" predates Disney, even if it hasn't yet been found in the written record. It would be natural to combine "featherpated" with the "twitter" of feathered birds, with "twitter" meaning "to tremble with nervous agitation or excitement", and with the concept of being "all atwitter".


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*Many of them are obsolete today -- I found them with one-look's pattern search.

[This message was edited by wordnerd on Mon Nov 10th, 2003 at 8:47.]

What is a word is an interesting discussion. Instead of my customary Jabberwocky example let's have a different one.
Here are some nonsense words removed from their original context. Try to guess the meanings before you read the passage they are from.

droog
rassoodocks
mesto
skorry
vesches
vellocet
synthomesc
drencom
moloko
horrorshow
Bog
mozg

If you don't know the source the liklihood that you guessed many correctly is quite low. They all come from the opening paragraph of A Clockwork Orange. Now read them in context and see how many you can guess. (If you really don't know there is a Nadsat glossary here.)

quote:

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"What's it going to be then eh ?"
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassodocks what to do with the evening, a flip, dark, chill winter bastard, though dry. The Korova milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no license for selling liquor, but there was no law yeat agains prodding some of the new vesches which they used to put in the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthomesc or drencom or one or two other vesches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mosg.

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I don't know how well you did but most people get most of them from the context even though the words are made up. They are semantic units, composed of conventional symbols (letters) whose meaning is, in context, perfectly clear. So here's the question - are they words or not?
If you think not then what are they instead and how do they differ from words?
If you think they are then were they still words when presented out of context at the start ?
If you think they were then how do the differ from random strings of letters - say thlogope or swertinong ?


I'm not offering an answer here you understand - just another way of considering the question.

Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

quote:

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Originally posted by BobHale:
...even though the words are made up.

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"Made up"? Not exactly. The large majority of Nadsat vocabulary is derived from Russian words already in existence. When he wrote "A Clockwork Orange," Anthony Burgess was implying a strong Russian influence over the bleak futuristic London landscape he was portraying.

By the way, now that you bring it up, "A Clockwork Orange" is another overlooked novel that I could strongly support being on any "Best 20 Novels" list. Truly a great read and, as an added benefit, arguably as good a movie as well.

Wow, this has been an exemplary discussion of the word "word." I think before I read all of this, I really thought a word should be cited in dictionaries, with an etymology. Yet, from reading Tinman's analysis, I may change my mind. Tinman's sources seem to agree that it merely communicates meaning, such as "twitter".

Now, Bob offers a more confusing question. Are those terms (ahhh!) used, in context, words? If so, what in earth do they mean out of context? I will call them "terms", I guess.

"Twitterpated", on the other hand, does seem to communicate meaning, at least to some people. That may be on the periphery of being a word?

KJV John 1:1 "In the beginning was the word "and."

They are words, and it is the most wonderful start to a novel: Burgess making up his own language, but including us all in its meaning.

I am always gently pleased by how many pop bands and record label names come from literary sources: there's three here, and it's just the first paragraph.

Reviving a thread...
As I was looking for another thread, I found this one, from 2003, about the word twitterpated. It's a great word, but I what intrigued me was - I wonder Twitter came from this word.

quote:

I wonder Twitter came from this word.

Not from "twitterpated", no. "Twitter", yes.

According to Wikipedia

quote:

"...we came across the word 'twitter', and it was just perfect. The definition was 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product was."

Twitter has spawned a porn version called Twatter.

And here I thought I had an original... should have known Colbert would beat me to it.