51吃瓜 of the Day
discombobulate
verb (used with object)
to confuse or disconcert; upset; frustrate.
More about discombobulate
Discombobulate 鈥渢o confuse, upset, or frustrate鈥� was originally a jocular American coinage from the North Midland U.S. (from Ohio west through Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, to Nebraska). Discombobulate is a pseudo-Latinism like absquatulate and confusticate, and based on learned Latin words like disaffiliate or disaggregate, or humorous alterations of discompose or discomfort. The many variant spellings include discombobligate, discombobolate, discomboberate, discombooberate, and discumboblificate. Discombobulate entered English in 1825 in the spelling discomboberated.
how is discombobulate used?
The filmmaking theory seems to be that if you discombobulate viewers with random shifts of the camera perhaps they won鈥檛 notice that your U.F.O. show contains no hard evidence of U.F.O.鈥檚.
On how humankind will cope, I tend to take the long view: new transformative technologies have discombobulated us before and we鈥檝e managed to adapt鈥攖o the invention of writing and printing, to living in cities, to the Industrial Revolution and instant communication and automobiles and nuclear technology.
discombobulate
More about umbrageous
Umbrageous has two main senses: 鈥渃reating or providing shade, shady鈥� and 鈥渁pt or likely to take offense.鈥� The word comes via French ombrageux 鈥渟hady; inclined to take offense,鈥� from Latin 耻尘产谤腻迟颈肠耻蝉 鈥�(of a person or an activity) living or performed in the shade, secluded, devoted to quiet, impractical pursuits.鈥� 鲍尘产谤腻迟颈肠耻蝉, a derivative adjective and noun of umbra 鈥渟hadow, shade, reflection, outline,鈥� does not have the senses 鈥渟hady, providing shade鈥� or 鈥渁pt or inclined to take offense,鈥� which are senses that English borrowed from 17th-century French. Umbrageous entered English in the second half of the 16th century.
how is umbrageous used?
… he was quite umbrageous, and his personality lent itself to confrontation.
Is it possible to spend time with friends whose company I do enjoy without incurring the wrath of the umbrageous?
umbrageous
More about bunkum
Bunkum means 鈥渋nsincere talk by a politician鈥� and is an alteration of Buncombe, a county in North Carolina. Bunkum is an all-American word that fittingly enough derives from a debate in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 16th United States Congress (1819-21) during the House debate about the admission of Missouri as a state into the Union. This so-called 鈥淢issouri Question鈥� was extremely important, because it dealt with whether Missouri entered the Union as a Free State or Slave State. (Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Maine was admitted as a Free State, Missouri as a Slave State.) Just before the vote was called, Felix Walker (1753-1828), U.S Representative from North Carolina, began a long, tedious, irrelevant, dull, and exasperating speech. His House colleagues tried to shout him down, but Walker persisted, saying that he was obliged to say something for the newspapers back home to prove that he was doing his job: “I shall not be speaking to the House, but to Buncombe.”
how is bunkum used?
It’s bunkum to suppose we can be touched by tragedies other than our own.
According to the Mail worldview of recent years, dignified British ways are under attack, mauled by vain liberal cosmopolitans, crafty foreigners, and fashionable bunkum.
bunkum