Verboticisms

Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: ree ty ro sar

Sentence: When Mary reached 65, she knew it was time to stop working. She had become a retirosaur. She no longer spoke the language of her younger boss and co-workers. She could remember working the teletype, a comptometer and her ancient Underwood typewriter had served her well. She had used a dictionary, a thesaurus, knew how to spell; remember people's names; compose grammatically correct sentences and do complex mathematical computations in her head. The staff loved her, but found her to be a quaint walking, talking museum on legs. Yes, Mary had worked for 45 years at the same place and the reason she had been kept on this long was because she knew how to do each job well and she knew where all the bodies were buried!

Etymology: Retire (Withdraw from circulation or participation; cease to work) & Dinosaur (any of numerous extinct terrestrial reptiles of the Mesozoic era)

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COMMENTS:

"Retirosaur!" Just like the Little Red Hen, let Mary say "Not I!" It's sad we can't make the good things that are in the past, more a part of the good things in the present ... glean the best of the both! - silveryaspen, 2009-01-07: 15:48:00

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Created by: OZZIEBOB

Pronunciation: old-WANG-sine

Sentence: Computers, voice mail and all those other modern gizmoes were not what Bob dreamed of, he yearned for the clatter of the typewriter and the world of wordprocessors, and the days of auldwangsyne.

Etymology: The Wang Co.founded in 1954, makers of typewriters and early word processors & "auld lang syne" expression meaning "days of long ago"

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COMMENTS:

bittersweet just like the song - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-14: 14:21:00

Nostalgic! A tribute to the byte-gone ways! Has such great heart! Exceptional! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:26:00

Should ALT acquaintents be ForMat and never brought to Mines... - Nosila, 2008-03-14: 23:20:00

Very technostalgic! Does anyone remember those 8-inch floppy disks? I think some of the Wangs had those... - Tigger, 2008-03-15: 15:10:00

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Created by: Banky

Pronunciation: row-set-tah-store-ridge

Sentence: Alex was fixated on amassing the largest collection of rosettastored modern media in the known world. The crown jewels in his menagerie were wax cylinders of Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral", "The Godfather Part III" presented in a swimming pool sized Zoetrope, and the painstaking and somewhat ironic translation of "The Mummy" in handpainted hieroglyphics. He would take various tour groups through the displays, pointing out the 8400 5 1/4" floppy disk download of the Wikipedia database on the left, the Russian woodcarvings of "Rocky IV" (mostly featuring gilded images of Drago as a werebear), and a series of dangerous pop-up books chronicling late 1970s blaxploitation pornography. Twice daily he would present various skits on a weekly rotating schedule; retellings of Judith Light Lifetime movies of the week in comedia dell'arte Punch and Judy shows, morality plays based on "Snow White" with wildly different dwarves, epic poems in which he related the trials and travels of Richard Branson, and on special occasions would present weeklong mesquite fueled smoke-signal presentations of Cormac McCarthy novels. His latest undertaking, an exhibit of "Norbit" on a series of Grecian urns was expected within the week.

Etymology: Rosetta stone - the large granite stone found by the French in 1799 which facilitated the deciperhing of Egyptian hieroglyphics + storage

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COMMENTS:

Great word, awesome sentence! - Jamagra, 2008-03-14: 11:21:00

Great word, awesome sentence! - Jamagra, 2008-03-14: 13:06:00

Wow!! - Jabberwocky, 2008-03-14: 14:16:00

Marvelous! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 17:58:00

Love the use of "rosseta". Great sentence,also. - OZZIEBOB, 2008-03-16: 17:06:00

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Created by: skeeterzirra

Pronunciation: Koo-ni-dat

Sentence: My parents have all these cunidat reels called super-eight.

Etymology: cuniform data

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Created by: TJayzz

Pronunciation: Tek-no-gliffiks

Sentence: When young Henry was given a set of books for Christmas he spent half an hour looking for the battery compartment, his mum explained that you actually had to read them. Henry was so astounded with the technoglyphics he thought about putting them in an antiques auction.

Etymology: Techno(abbrieviation for technological) + Hieroglyphics(ancient Egyptian script) = Technoglyphics

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COMMENTS:

so sad - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-07: 14:24:00

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Created by: silveryaspen

Pronunciation: gadg jettison

Sentence: Gadgets evolve so quickly, that those of today, are outdated tomorrow, and become gadjettisons.

Etymology: GADGETS, JETTISON. GADGETS - machines, objects, things. JETTISON - throw out, get rid of, abandon, discard, ditch, chuck, dump, chuck out

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COMMENTS:

Egad! another top word! - galwaywegian, 2009-01-07: 12:05:00

great combo - Jabberwocky, 2009-01-07: 14:23:00

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Created by: galwaywegian

Pronunciation: ann teh wot eee

Sentence: the sound of the antechwhatee scratched along, every now and then receding so you could make out a strangulated voice crooning something about gramma.

Etymology: antiquity, tech, what

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COMMENTS:

What a witty clever pun! Nice one! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 23:52:00

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Created by: Mustang

Pronunciation: ret - ro - surf

Sentence: Having only their granddad's discarded computer to rely on Delbert and Javier had no choice but to resort to retrosurfing method of finding information.

Etymology: Retro + surf

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COMMENTS:

What a lot of retrosurfing has been done here today! Great angle! Great word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 18:41:00

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Created by: Nosila

Pronunciation: pas say im pur fect

Sentence: Young Billy adored his grandfather and loved it when the old geezer told him stories about the passéimperfect. He knew his grandpa made this stuff up, but he loved to hear about the good old days anyway and in particular about the ancient tools they used. He regaled Billy with yarns about how his phone had numbers that went round and round when he stuck his finger in the holes for each set of numbers. Grandpa also told him about watching tv shows on the one channel in black & white and for some reason you needed a rabbit's ears to see the tiny picture better. (As if!) He also told him of cooking without using a microwave (yeah, right!) and buying big blocks of ice to keep everything in the fridge cold (you've got to be kidding!). That crazy Grandpa, he told Billy that a log on was something you put on a bonfire and that a link was something you put on your sleeves to keep the cuffs closed. He said a password was something you spoke into a grill on a door to get into a speak-easy (must be some kind of spellcheck for voice actioned computers?) Billy loved the really old things that Grandpa gave him. Like most boys his age, he loved dinosaurs. He was so excited today, because Grandpa was coming over and bringing him a thesaurus...he couldn't wait to play with it!

Etymology: passé (out of fashion) & past imperfect (grammar: tense imperfect refers to an action that is uncompleted or abandoned)

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COMMENTS:

Rrrawr! Oh no, here comes the fierce Thesaurus Rex!... That's hilarious. - Tigger, 2008-03-14: 03:09:00

All that was makes me curious about what is to come! Great etymology ... conveys the way passages from the old ... lead to the knew ... growing, evolving, better and better ... perfecting! A Perfectly wonderful sentence and word! - silveryaspen, 2008-03-14: 17:08:00

Thanks, Tigger & silveryaspen. I always thought the best name for the Toronto NBA Team was TorontoSaurus Wrecks...but no one would listen... - Nosila, 2008-03-14: 23:16:00

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Created by: youmustvotenato

Pronunciation: rhymes with electronics

Sentence: What's with the retronics? You need to get iPhone 17 already

Etymology: Retro + electronics

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