Fun Stuff > CHATTER
English is weird
Thrillho:
Is rambunctious not in the UK as well? Or am I too polluted by American media?
Morituri:
I definitely am familiar with and have used all five. They are sort of gradations of meaning, the way 'jump' and 'hop' denote slightly different things.
'Ornery' (spelled with and pronounced without that first 'r') is a word to describe someone who deliberately makes things difficult or puts obstacles or unpleasant surprises in other peoples' way, usually for humor but also if it's a passive-aggressive way to try to get people to do things differently. Two people think you use too much sugar at the table. The reasonable one tells you it's bad for you; the ornery one fills the sugar bowl with salt one morning. 'Disagreeably stubborn' sort of misses the nuance. From the midwest.
'Discombobulated' describes someone who's not capable of acting as they normally would because they're under emotional stress - usually surprised, confused, or bewildered.
'Rambunctious' ... brings to mind images of bouncy half-grown kittens. When we old pharts see young kids playing tag, and nod sagely and think to ourselves, 'it's amazing how much mature wisdom is like being too tired', it's usually because the kids are being rambunctious. Energetically playful, maybe.
'Conniption' was certainly used by either sex about anyone when I was a kid. 'Tantrum' is a reasonable render, but we would have used 'tantrum' for an actual child and 'conniption' for an adult acting childish.
'Copacetic' is not just "okay" or "fine", it's "okay but we sure didn't expect it to be okay," or "okay and that's a great relief" or "okay and that's a cause for jubiliation" or "that thing we never really admitted to ourselves that we thought wouldn't work, actually worked, so now we're going to feel relieved and smug and we'll probably never really admit to ourselves why...."
"forty third president Thomas Whitmore?" I'm sure that's a joke but I don't get it.
LeeC:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 19 Dec 2018, 11:04 ---"forty third president Thomas Whitmore?" I'm sure that's a joke but I don't get it.
--- End quote ---
Its just the president in the movie Independence Day who gave a grand speech.
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Thrillho on 19 Dec 2018, 10:44 ---Is rambunctious not in the UK as well? Or am I too polluted by American media?
--- End quote ---
To be it seems like a version of the older British word: rumbustious. The OED doesn't offer a positive link between them, though.
Of those words I use only discombobulated (though it seems my spell-checker thinks I shouldn't, and the OED labels it as North American).
Is it cold in here?:
For some reason I started wondering again about the old question of why someone who sews is not called a "sewer".
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