The Joy of Learning New Words

[rgray222]

Pogroms - (noun) violent riot aimed at massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group.

[rgray222]

I was reading an article about Dick Cheney's funeral and came across this word, which I had never heard of.

catafalque - A catafalque is a raised platform or framework that supports a coffin during a funeral, lying-in-state, or memorial service, allowing mourners to pay their respects in a dignified manner.

Pronounce - cat a falk (US/ˈkæt̬.ə.fɑːlk/) (UK/ˈkæt.ə.fælk/)

[Johnnycomelately]

New words have some appeal, but I’m more concerned with learning about old words. For instance, I have always thought that herbs and spices are basically the same type of thing, different additive flavours. But now I hear that they are somehow different. What is up with that?

Example, “pomkin” pie, from back in the day (1796), was made with “herbs, instead of spices”. What the heck is that about?

Any cooks, please chime in.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=N0LJwhkkxac

[Bill Ryan]

At the start of this video there's an explanation by Rizwan Virk of the origin of the modern use of the word Avatar. (I never knew this!)

~~~

Your character inside a video game is referred to as an Avatar, and that term comes from Sanskrit. It's a spiritual term.

It means when there's a divine entity, like like a god or goddess, that comes down into a human incarnation. So you have an Avatar of the Divinity.

When the guys at Lucasfilm, George Lucas's company, after he made Star Wars, were building one of the first online role playing games, they had this little character on the screen. They were using Commodore 64, so this is a long time ago.

They were looking for a term to describe your character on the screen. And they said it felt like they were taking themselves and squeezing themselves into the phone wire and ending up in this small character on the screen. And so they used the term "Avatar".