Conference thebay::joyoflex

    2. defn:  To throw something out a window.
    
    Funny you sjould mention this -- I actually used this word (in a
    humorous context) this very week.
    
    The act of throwing something out a window is: defenestration!

    Actually, "defenestration" is to throw someONE out a window.  It
    was a popular form of assassination (see "hashashin", et. al.) in
    Poland in the Middle Ages.
    
    Durned if I can remember the word for the first one..."lucubrate"
    is to study by candlelight...

"Fenestration", on the other hand, is NOT the act of throwing 
someone INTO a window.  It refers to the arrangement of the 
windows on a building, and sometimes also their style and 
decoration - an architectural term. 

Is there a word for the act of removing the windows from a building?

>    1. defn:  To learn via reading rather than through experience.

"Booklarnin'" ?

(Perhaps properly spelled "booklearning", but never pronounced that way...)

    Actually, defenestration was most commonly used a form of political
    protest rather than as a form of assassination. From what I remember
    from my history of the era, deaths from defenestration were mostly
    accidental. The defenestrators were generally careful to cushion the
    blow with a pile of something yielding and appropriate to the offense
    -- sometimes hay, but usually manure. 

    
    	Jon

    Could '(de)fenestration' be derived from the same root as the
    German word 'fenster', or window ?

  It's more probable that both the English and German words are derived
  from the Latin fenestra (window).

  JP

    Not just probable.  Anyone know the split between Anglo-Saxon, Latin
    and Greek words in the English language?  Or maybe that's a
    non-question, since I'm told there's a perfectly good Anglo-Saxon
    replacement for every latinate word (though not always polite).
    
    Jeff.
    

	Nobody seems to have tried to answer Kurt's first query, so
I'm going to give it a shot. 


>    1. defn:  To learn via reading rather than through experience. 

	I think the word you're looking for may be "vicarious", an
adjective describing an act performed on behalf of, or through the
agency of, someone else. 

	Hence a "vicarious existence" is lived by people who get their
thrills through the experiences and adventures of others rather than
living them out themelves; typically through escapist literature,
films, and NOTing. 

>    1. defn:  To learn via reading rather than through experience. 

    Another possibility (with an additional shade of meaning) might be
    a verb form of "rote".  Can someone verbify that?  verbize?  verbalize?.....

    Forgive me for just tacking this on here, but I hate starting new
    topics and this title was perfect.
    
    What is the word, akin to misogyny, meaning "hatred of women", that
    means "hatred of men"? Please don't make one up. I'd like to know
    that someone actually found it in a dictionary. There is no such
    word (at least one that starts with "mis") in my "Webster's Seventh
    New Collegiate". 

    re .1
    
    Haven't checked anything, but I think it simply doesn't exist. 
    Nobody has such feelings  :)
    
    It it existed, it would probably be something close to 'misandry', 
    given that Greek for man (in the sense of male, not humanity) 
    is 'andros'.
    
    	roger

    
    Is 'misanthropy' close, or does that refer to people rather than
    men?
    
    Paul V
    

    Re .13 (Paul):
    
    I was thinkingh "misanthropy" too.  The problem here is that, given
    our sometimes strange language, "man" has two flavors, and misanthropy
    is usually used as meaning "people" rather than just "men."  However,
    I suspect context could make that clear.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    re -.the last few: Misandry it is.
    
    A related question: what's the word corresponding to 'uxorious'
    that means excessively fond of a husband?
    
    Rob (whose wife loves him, but not _too_ much)

    Misanthropy is hating people, not males. As has been stated above,
    there is no mis-mumble word in the dictionary for man-hater. However,
    the word "misandry" is a parallel formation from misogyny. You won't
    find it in any dictionary, but if we all use it, we will. 
    
    	Jon

Re: .15

Misandry it is; .12 was right (allowing for a teeny nit: `aner' is
Ancient Greek for a/the man, `andros' is the genitive.

I, too, have wondered about `uxorious'.  Perhaps, when the word was
coined, there was just no scope for an overfond-of-her-husband
equivalent, since - in that time/society (Victorian, I suspect - tho'
I wouldn't be surprised if the OED proved me wrong by a few centuries)
a woman's full-time job was thought to be being fond.  A word like
`uxorious' had a place in a gentleman's club; it referred to a chap
who didn't spend enough time with the chaps. Women had no such
institution.

Of course, that sort of speculation needn't stop us from coining
a word now (tho' I'm not sure how useful it would be - saying
more about the speaker's expectations than about the person
described). In this regard, it may be worth noting that Latin
for a man marrying a woman (`ducere' - he just led her away)
wasn't the same as a woman marrying a man (`sub jugum ponere' -
she put him under a yoke, or just _sub_jug_ated him).

There again, maybe it's not worth noting that.  A sexist's
a sexist's a sexist, Latin or otherwise.

b

    The French word (uxorien) has no 'feminine' counterpart
    either. Looks like French is just as sexist as English
    in this case.
            
    We could build such a word around the Latin root 'vir', which 
    meant 'husband' as one of its many senses. 
    
    How about 'virous' ?  As in:
    "Bonnie is incredibly virous; she refuses to do anything without
    her husband !".
    
    Or perhaps we could use the root (probably germanic ?) of 
    'husband'.
    
    	roger

    I am looking for a word that I am sure I heard used during news
    reports of the last stock market crash. The word described the belief
    that events (for example, political or economic) are manipulated
    by "someone" or some group. They meant this in the sense of some
    powerful, unknown person(s), not in the sense of a supreme being.
    
    When I heard them use the word, I thought it was a great word. I
    just don't remember it. If I was hallucinating, we should make up
    a word that fits. 
    
    Does anyone remember this being used?
    
    Joseph
    

    Re .19 (Joseph):
    
    Names/words that come to mind are "manipulators," "puppet masters,"
    "players behind the scenes," "insiders," "jugglers," or "illuminati."
    
    Bet you heard something else ...
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    gnomes of Geneva?
    

    megalomaniacs?

    re:.21
    
    It's either the Gnomes of Zurich or The Thirteen Old Men in Geneva
    Who Secretly Rule the World.
    
    --- jerry

    re:.23 (note title)
    
    (I'm aware that "allusion" doesn't really fit there, but the
    phrase popped into my head, and it seemed too good to throw
    away.)
    
    --- jerry

    re .23:
    
    He's having an allusion delusion. 

    re .19
    
    Was it the name of the 'manipulators', eg the Gnomes etc ...?

    Or the belief that they exist ? In this case, how about demiurgism ?
    
    	roger    
    

    I believe that demiurgism is what I was looking for. Go to the
    head of the class!
    
    Thanks
    
    Joseph (who will probably never use the word)
    

    What about good old paranoia? Thomas Pynchon's very wonderful Gravity's
    Rainbow contains, among other things, a number of "proverbs for
    paranoids", some of which, if I recall correctly, are:
    
    "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get
    you."
    
    "You hide - they seek."
    
    re: defenestration. There is a famous historical incident called the
    Defenestration of Prague.