Word of the Day: Crytoscopophilia

From the blog at Powell’s Books — it’s the winning word in their OED contest — comes crytoscopophilia:  the urge to look through people’s windows as you pass by their houses.

And who doesn’t have that urge?  (Not in a skeevy way, you guys, for kinks and kicks, though in this instance I am only speaking for myself.)  One of the few pleasures for a poor, underemployed urban dweller is a bit of flânerie (consider that the bonus word) and the chance to, with a quick glimpse, basically window shop other existences.  Or cadge decorating ideas!  Or maybe, if feeling petty, to judge your circumstances against those of someone else.  Whatever the case, it’s a chance to allow your mind to drift,  or wonder, after say, strolling past the Henry Jamesian townhouses near Washington Square, or squinting and grimacing while peering into the steel and glass monstrosities that sprouted like warts in the last decade, divining whatever humble, or hubristic, or saccharine stories that can be read into an old piano standing stately in the living room, or a dusty bookshelf illuminated by a replica Tiffany lamp.  The empathy or envy at watching a young couple making dinner in tandem, the faintest bit of music drifting out from their stereo and into the streets.  The things you recognize, or revile, the wanting or the rejecting or the someday wishes.

If that sounds way too romanticized, I guess then that indeed makes it the flip-side of the Peeping Tom (or Tomasina?), the stereotypically horned up panting thing with binoculars or a convenient perch, fervidly watching for the towel to slip from the careless neighbor who hadn’t bothered to shut the curtains after a shower. (We shant speak of the voyeuristically designed see-through showers at the Hotel on Rivington and their ability to make anyone complicit in acts of carnality.)

Remember when Peter Vallone Jr. proposed his anti-peeping legislation?   It would have hampered what is a quintessential New York pasttime.  The imagined life can be worth investigating, if for one brief interlude at a time.  [PowellsBooks.BLOG]

Word of the Day: Amanuensis

Currently reading, and enjoying, Colm Toibin’s The Master, about Henry James (that fussy old queen!) when I came across amanuensis:\uh-man-yoo-EN-sis\, noun:
A person employed to take dictation or to copy manuscripts.

Oddly, when my sister was visiting recently, we had an inside (and decidely un-PC) joke about Helen Keller working as a gal friday in one of those old screwball comedies.

Boss: Take a memo, Miss Keller. [Dictates lengthy letter] Now read that last sentence back to me.

HK: Uhkmphf aw mehhh.

Granted, it loses something in the bloglation, but it’s hi-larious when you’ve downed a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Word of the Day: Pestilence

Ah, summer approaches, bringing with it the pleasures of dining al fresco, lazy Sundays spent in the park, the possibility of a seasonal romance and maychance the Plague!

In honor of the globe-trotting incubator of “a rare and exceptionally dangerous form of tuberculosis” who’s currently taking a little government-supervised vacay at the CDC –and who may or may not be an agent of the Apocalypse–the word of the day is pestilence:

pes·ti·lence
n.

1. A usually fatal epidemic disease, especially bubonic plague.

2. A pernicious, evil influence or agent.

Seriously, for a hypochondriac like me this news doesn’t sit well; I’m mainlining Airborne as I type this. Just when the weather was pleasant enough for me to leave my hovel and enjoy the outdoors, among the madding crowd, this phlegm-ridden harbinger of Doomsday appears. Fuck. Looks like I’ll be packing my respirator along with my bathing suit when I hit the beach. You can never be too careful!

Word of the Day: Hobo

Because I like to edu-ma-cate, and because the uttering of it is comedy gold (right, Jerri Blank?), today’s word is hobo.

ho·bo (hb)

n. pl. ho·boes or ho·bos

1. One who wanders from place to place without a permanent home or a means of livelihood.

2. A migrant worker.

intr.v. ho·boed, ho·bo·ing, ho·boes

To live or wander like a vagrant.

Word of the Day: Monkeyshine

Because I love monkeys and really wanted to use this picture of Lancelot Link (yeah, I know he was a Secret Chimp, which is technically an ape, but whatever) today’s word is monkeyshine:

n. Slang.

A mischievous or playful trick; a prank.