Unusual Verbs 3: Deep Six

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=deep+six

I quite like the verb “deep-six.” I like a lot of those numerical expressions:

• 180
• 360
• “File 13”
• 10-4
• 411
• 0118 999 881 999 119 725…3
• 5150

But “deep-six” is different. It has an attached adjective. That’s unique. It’s also visual. Burying something six feet under is intense. Think Pandora’s box; Hamlet with Yorick’s skull. Think Kill Bill Vol. II. Being deep-sixed is almost untenable. There’s almost no coming back from it. That’s why it works so well as a verb. It’s pretty much irreversible. It’s an absolute — a speech act that is almost impossible to undo. Even if it was, who would have the balls to resurrect that which has been deep-sixed. Bringing back something so decisively cast away must be a dirty business. If you deep-six something, you mean for it to be gone forever. Out of sight, out of mind.

I’m sure you have a list of things that should be deep-sixed. Things that just need to be GONE — returned to the dust from whence they came. That should be a fun list to write as long as nothing is off-limits.

 

Nix (V)

Unusual Verbs 2

Nix is what I refer to as a little word with a big personality. It’s compact, pithy, and almost impossible to misunderstand.

Nix means to deny approval or permission, to cancel, or veto. The definition has not changed much since 1903 (www.dictionary.com/nix) It is, in fact, the opposite of greenlight. It’s a great word to use when you want to make your point fast. And that point is NO! It even lends itself to Pig Latin: ixnay.

• Nixing
• Nixed
• Nixes
• “Nixable” ( I made this up — because I can.)

 

Greenlight (V)

Welcome to The Festering Blurb. This blog is eleven years old; I started writing about my book collection in 2007. Then there was a ridonkulously long hiatus between 2012 and now. So the Blurb is back with new books and new categories. This post is the beginning of a series called “Unusual Verbs”. I’ve decided to branch out from just writing about books to writing about language. This post is under a new category “Vocabularify.”

 

Unusual Verbs 1

• Greenlight. To approve a project; to give permission for a project to begin.

History: A green traffic light means to proceed. The motion picture business in California started using the expression “greenlight” as a verb. In the movie business, to greenlight means to give permission to start a new project, usually start making a movie.

• Greenlighting (present participle)
• Greenlit (past)
• Greenlights (present)
• Will have greenlit (Seriously…who would ever use this tense?)

Learning Connections: Compound word. Irregular verb.

AA GILL IS MY NEW WRITING HERO

AA GILL at Amazon

 

 

Wow, Gill is fearless, sarcastic, really sarcastic, smart, street-wise, worldly, and loving. He was a restaurant/food critic that I discovered on one of Anthony Bourdain’s shows.He has a fantastic personality, and speaks eloquently on the connection between food and…well… everything. Food and politics. Food and nationalism.  Food and love.  Food and diplomacy. Food and philosophy. He’s handsome, fun, intelligent, and dyslexic.

It’s true. He writes about how much work it is for him to get anything written. His penmanship is awful, so he has people to translate his notes for him. He talks about it with refreshing honesty. That’s one of the reasons why he’s my hero.  If he can be a famous writer with dyslexia, what the hell!  Here’s the lesson for all of us who have limitations – you can still control how much you accomplish in spite of them. You can do anything you set your mind to. He’s the proof – if you need more proof.

If you can get hold of a copy (www.ebay.com) (www.amazon.com) of Paper View: The Best of the Sunday Times Television Columns, this is a great place to start getting a feel for his writing style.  It’s very conversational – like cocktail party banter. Like that part of the party where you’ve been there long enough to get into deeper conversations with some of the more interesting guests. It’s witty in the best sense, emotional, clever, and honest. After I read this book, I immediately bought 3 more and binged on Gill the way people binge on their Netflixfavorites.

Here is Anthony Bourdain and Gill having dinner in Scotland after a day of shooting.

Twice on CNN, I’ve tried to record this specific episode. The first time I tried, it was the day of the Florida nightclub shootings. The second time was the evening of another mass shooting a week or so ago. I’m just going to bide my time and keep an eye on the channel for it to rerun.

Webnovelas feat. William Levy–Part 3

I’m sorry to report that the links no longer work. Univision has completely redone their site and no longer has forums for these stars. They just have news feeds now.

The Festering Blurb:Bursting Open w/Pungent Prose

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Time Changes All Things

William Levy Forum

Jacqueline Bracamontes Forum

Maite Perroni Forum

Univision Foros

Wow, I had not been to Univision forums for a long time. I am distressed to find that they no longer do celebrity forums. What does that mean?

It means:

• None of the links to the webnovelas work.
• There is no more William Levy forum at that site.
• There is no more Jacqueline Bracamontes forum.
• There is no more Maite Perroni forum.
• There are no more forums for the novelas that they starred in.

What does that mean for this blog? Well, the webnovela posts are the most visited in the entire blog. Anything that features William Levy in this blog gets the most hits every day. And now, the links are useless. I’m probably going to end up re-blogging the posts to announce that the links no longer work. There goes half my readership.  (The other half if the Elizabeth Lowell groupies).

Major suckage.

Thank you to the readers who searched here for their Levyrroni and Levymontes links. Let’s see what the future brings.  There’s certainly no shortage of William!

 

 

 

Technorati Rats Leave the Sinking Ship

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/06/23/technorati-quietly-killed-its-once-authoritative-blog-ranking-system-in-may/

When I started this blog, I used TECHNORATI to establish my online presence. It was good. It was easy to use.  It was a definitive tool for blog statistics. The article (click on link) describes how they sank and disappeared.  So, for both readers of this blog, none of the Technorati tags are going to work. I’m very sorry for any inconvenience.

Time changes all things.

Swetergrl