#Dysphemic

[yurimartyr]

history is so fun because you can like to back 105 years and learn "women are now people" and then instead go back 65 years and learn "black people are now people" and then instead go back 45 years and learn "gay people are now people" and then instead go back 21 years and learn "discrimination is now illegal" and you go. damn. my country kinda sucked back then. then you instead go back only 15 years and learn "homosexuality is now legal" and then instead go back 6 years and learn "sexual assault is now illegal" and then instead go back 4 years and learn "children are now people" and you go. hm. i have been alive longer than these laws have been in place. and then you wonder what other fucked up things are legal without you knowing it until you in a few years hear it's now illegal and go "what the fuck, that was legal? during my lifetime? why the fuck was that legal for so long." and this cycle will repeat probably forever. country seems awesome but if you go back any amount of time you'll find out it was fucking awful; this'll be true even when you in the future go back to what's currently the present.

[sunliteve]

aloe and asphodel!

PLANT/FLOWER SYMBOLISM ASKS! / not accepting.

ALOE: DOES YOUR MUSE MISS SOMEONE THAT THEY’VE LOST, WHETHER THROUGH DEATH OR A DIFFERENT LOSS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP?

He's on the island without his foster brother and the friend he loves, both of whom he'd usually see almost daily; heartbreaking 💔 It's been about a month since he arrived, and at this point he'd even hug Ibara if he showed up here.

ASPHODEL: DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE REGRETS THAT THEY WISH THEY CAN FIX, BUT NEVER CAN?

Hiyori feels remorse for his part in the war at Yumenosaki (as wild as that must sound to anyone unfamiliar with his canon). Eichi's revolution accomplished what they set out to do, but also created an environment where things like bullying and depression festered. Hiyori believes he's become a better person in a better situation since then, but there's no denying that some of the struggling students even committed suicide.

While most people still living have moved on, there's really no fixing that level of unintended consequences.

[mortejchjo]

Boat on a Waveless lot of Lake

Boat on a waveless lot of lake, me and my game killed treking waters still uncharted on my own.

Still when the white pond in the black sky was descending, I was watchful for a quack or a crow.

Finally, duck calls now at last! But for some reason, in a circle of tight tall trees they had flown.

-

Trees in a circle tightly packed-in were where ducks had arbored havens as they hid deep in those homes.

This is when I then had to follow; finding one single mesquite tree in the center, all alone.

These kinds of trees thrive in an arid situation, and is never among water unless thrown.

-

Those very same ducks in a long line then had flown into the tree's cleft as if it'd been a blackhole.

After the ducks, some long horned deer, antlers like branches, went and walked onto the water liked skipped stones.

Neither their eyes, nor did my own meet. His objective's to be in that hollowed tree, strolling slow.

-

Just when the deer entered the tree, horned branches turned arboreal, now taking shapes of wooden bones.

Just as the deer had disappeared into the tree, I lost my balance as my boat was being thrown.

Now as the deer lay resting calm, me and my boat flipped and were capsized and were dragged down by grooved woes.

[k-simplex]

It does feel lately on Tumblr like the word "liberal" has been morphing into a dysphemism meaning "maximally evil person" rather than a political term describing an existing ideology

[3sadbats]

Forced Apathy

You comprehend, you understand,

You even might agree;

Your work receives their reprimand,

You grant them amnesty

Their words, they hurt and wound your heart

And no reprieve you see;

The fault is mostly yours in part,

They lead you to believe

The list of dysphemisms hums

A haunted hateful tune;

Your fatal solecism comes

To make the vultures swoon

Without demur, “they’re right,” you grant;

Inside, your mind, it flails;

Despite your work, “it’s nought,” you chant,

With words rehearsed in wails

“The vitriol we call rebuff

Will burn inside your soul;

It’s caustic but will cleanse enough

Your dreams into your goals”

You feed yourself this sweetened lie,

But always should you boast;

In lieu of expiation, rise,

And be not lachrymose

Be sure your work and effort spent

Is meritorious;

Of course their words a heart can wrench,

But let it hurt you less

It takes a strength to wear this guise,

Resolve to never flee,

And say with grief and tear-filled eyes

“It doesn’t bother me”

(Another old poem)

[tanadrin]

Favorite words

I keep a file on my computer of my favorite words, which are usually selected for phonaesthetic reasons, or because they are semantically or grammatically interesting. This is the list as of the most recent entries (”velico” and “Ushakaron”):

Individual words

analáugns (Gothic): hidden (nom. m. sg.)

anchorhold (English): the cell of an anchorite, in which the occupant is entombed as a kind of living saint

Apocryphan (invented): from World of Warcraft; proper name, of the pre-Cataclysm location “Apocryphan’s Rest” in the Badlands zone

armōsts (Gothic): poorest (nom. m. sg.)

ashkandi /,æʃ 'kɑn di/ (invented): proper name (World of Warcraft)

bearonæss /'bæɑɹ o ,næs/ (Old English): wooded headland (from bearu, "grove")

beinahrúgu (Old Norse): bone pile (dat. of beinahrúga)

carcern (Old English): prison (from Latin)

coalesce, coalescent (English)

crepuscular (English)

darkling (English): in darkness

daroð (Old English): javelin, projectile, “dart” in the older, more expansive sense

deliquesce (English), become liquid, esp. through organic decomposition

deosil (English): variant spelling of ‘deasil,’ turnwise; from Scottish Gaelic deiseil or deiseal, meaning ‘southward, sunward, counterclockwise;’ see also "widdershins," etymologically "anti-sunwise" and therefore counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere.

effloresce, efflorescence, efflorescent (English): to burst forth into bloom, to flower; from Latin effloresco, “I blossom, I flourish”

Enakro (invented): from Warcraft III; proper name, from the name of the multiplayer map “Enakro’s Way”

Eskhandar /'ɛsk hænd ,dɑɹ/ (invented): from World of Warcraft; proper name

etiäinen (Finnish): a type of folkloric apparition

exarch (English): a Byzantine provincial governor, particularly of an exarchate like Ravenna or Africa, from Greek ἔξαρχος.

fralusanō (Gothic): lost, gone away (nom. f. weak sg.)

gevaisa (invented): a tomb of living words; term of art among wizards of the Discworld; cf. Hebrew geniza, "a storeroom containing books which cannot be used, but which nevertheless cannot be destroyed because they contain God's name"

gnist (Danish): spark; related to OE gnāst, ON gniesta, SWE gnista, OHG gneisto, MHG gneiste

hellwara (Old English): ‘of the inhabitants of hell’ (gen. pl. of f. hellwaru or m. hellwaran)

hnasqus (Gothic): soft; cognate of OE hnesce, “soft,” ModE. dialectical nesh ��wimpish, weak”

idaltu (Saho-Afar): elder, firstborn; cf. Homo sapiens idaltu, the (obsolete) classification of the “Herto man” specimen, human remains of about 150,000 years of age discovered in the Afar triangle, which were some of the oldest modern human remains known at the time of their description.

idreigonds (Gothic): repentant (nom. m. sg.)

iktsuarpok (English): the feeling of anticipation waiting for someone to arrive, often leading to repeatedly going outside to check for them; from Inuktitut ᐃᒃᑦᓱᐊᕐᐳᒃ itsoarpok, “goes outside repeatedly to check if a visitor has arrived yet.”

incunabulum (English): an early printed book; something in its infant stages; from Latin incunabula, ‘swaddling clothes, cradle, birthplace.” The change in ending is a result of the medieval form incunabulum, which was a singular back-formation of a noun previously found only in the plural.

incus (Latin): "anvil"

inwitwrāsen (Old English): ‘chain of deceit’

Iolanthe (Greek): proper name meaning ‘flower of the violet’

irgendwo (German): somewhere, anywhere

κακοΐλιον (Ancient Greek): proper name (‘Kakoilion’); dysphemism for Troy; compound of κᾰκός, “bad, vile, evil,” and Ἴλιον, “Ilion/Troy/Wilusa.” Translated variously as "evil Ilios" (A.T. Murray) or "Destroy" (Fagles, pun very much intended); a poetic hapax legomenon in Homer's Odyssey, used by Penelope for Troy.

kasterborous /kæs 'tɝɹ bɔɹ oʊs/ (invented): proper name of the constellation in Doctor Who containing Gallifrey; possibly Gallifreyan

lhammas (invented): the Elvish (Quenya?) name of a work of fictional sociolinguistics by J.R.R. Tolkien outlining the relationship of the languages of Middle Earth, later superseded; borrowed as a term for "a scheme of invented languages; the historical and aesthetic plan of languages in a constructed world; such scheme in the abstract, or a document laying out such a scheme"

lint (invented): quick, clever; possibly coined by Tolkien, and of no particular language; it formed the root of such words in several constructed languages of his that were unrelated, simply because he liked the sound-meaning relationship

listopad (Polish): November; literally, “leaf-fall”

mæw (Old English): seagull

mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan): glossed as ‘a look shared by two people wishing the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin.’ The word is a regular derivation from ihlvpi, “to feel awkward, to be at a loss,’ with various grammatical affixes of voice, aspect, and so forth, and might be more accurately translated as ‘to make each other both feel awkward.’

narthex (English): antechamber or entrance area of some Christian churches; from Greek νάρθηξ, “giant fennel, box for ointments”

neorxnawang (Old English): ‘field of heaven’

opalescent (English): iridescent in a manner resembling opal

orcnaw (Old English): evident

razda (Gothic): voice

reordberend (Old English): ‘voice-bearer,’ i.e., a poetic word for a human being

ríastrad (Irish): battle frenzy, berserker rage, warp spasm

ruinenlust (German): literally ‘desire for ruins;’ yearning for the past evoked by ruins

Saoshyant /'saʊ ,ʃyənt/ (English): eschatological figure of Zoroastrian scripture and tradition who brings about the final renovation of the universe, the Frashokereti. From Avestan 𐬯𐬀𐬊𐬳𐬌𐬌𐬀𐬧𐬝 saoš́iiaṇt̰.

Sargasso (English): proper name applied to a region of the western Atlantic; from Portuguese sargaço, of unknown ultimate origin)

searonet (Old English): web of guile, web of cunning

Sumer (English): proper name, from Akkadian Šumeru, of uncertain origin but potentially related to Hebrew שִׁנְעָר Shin’ar, Egyptian sꜣngꜣr , and Hittite Shanhar(a), all meaning “southern Mesopotamia;” has also been linked to the Sumerian endonym 𒊕𒈪𒂵 sag̃-gig-ga, “black-headed people, the Sumerians”

talast (Old English): 2nd person singular present active indicative: thou reckonest, thou dost consider

tīrfæst (Old English): glorious

tramountayne (Middle English fr. Latin via Italian): the north; the north wind; the north star (rare) (from Latin transmontanus)

Tuscarora (English): proper name of a Native American people, from Skarure skarū’ren’, “hemp gatherers.”

Tyree (English): found as a personal name and surname (cf. Mount Tyree in Antarctica, named for a U.S. Navy rear admiral); name of a fictional planet in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; from Tiree (Scottish Gaelic Tiriodh), the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides.

Ushakaron (English): proper name of a star; according to unsourced claims, the triple star ξ Tauri, possibly from the Akkadian word for “avenger”

velico (Italian): sailing

westengryre (Old English): ‘terrors of the wasteland, terrors of the desert’

whyssyne (Middle English): cushion

wodwo (Middle English): woodwose, a wild man of the woods

þancoi (Old English): thoughtful

þystro (Old English): darkness (nom./acc. strong n. pl.)

Phrases or expressions

uncleftish beholding ("Uncleftish Beholding," by Poul Anderson, English): "atomic theory" as calqued into solely Germanic roots

proclarush taonas (Stargate SG-1, supposed ‘Ancient’ language): "Taonas, lost in fire"

varg í véum (Vǫlsunga Saga, Old Norse) "a wolf in holy places," i.e., an outlaw (equivalent to skógarmaðr)

wære fræton (Exodus, Old English): "they ate the treaty," i.e., they broke it

hapax legomenon (from Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον): a word which occurs only once in a manuscript or particular textual corpus

táiknái andsakanái (Gothic, Luke 2:34), “disputed sign,” cf. KJV, “a sign which will be contradicted.”

[hakogyi]

aggietalia (aggie session where the theme was, unfortunately, hetalia) with @qualityrain and @crystals-trash-heap 🩷

keep reading for france's bare ass (not a dysphemism)

and close ups 😔

[i-scan-your-poems]

Forced apathy

You comprehend, you understand,

You even might agree;

Your work receives their reprimand,

You grant them amnesty

Their words, they hurt and wound your heart

And no reprieve you see;

The fault is mostly yours in part,

They lead you to believe

The list of dysphemisms hums

A haunted hateful tune;

Your fatal solecism comes

To make the vultures swoon

Without demur, “they’re right,” you grant,

Inside, your mind, it flails;

Despite your work, “it’s nought,” you chant,

With words rehearsed in wails

“The vitriol we call rebuff

Will burn inside your soul;

It’s caustic but will cleanse enough

Your dreams into your goals”

You feed yourself this sweetened lie,

But always should you boast;

In lieu of expiation, rise,

And be not lachrymose

Be sure your work and effort spent

Is meritorious;

Of course their words a heart can wrench,

But let it hurt you less

It takes a strength to wear this guise,

Resolve to never flee,

And say with grief and tear-filled eyes

“It doesn’t bother me”

(Hopefully the prose here tracks better)

Scansion:

◡ – ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – You comprehend, you understand, ◡ – – ◡ ◡ – [note trochaic inversion in 2nd foot] You even might agree; ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – Your work receives their reprimand, ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – You grant them amnesty

Metrical form: iambic tetrameter + iambic trimeter, aka common hymn meter

Rhyme scheme: ABAB

[samueldays]

And yet, SpaceX has put objects in space.

Twitter has been a hilarious dumpster fire to watch the last few weeks, with funnymen, discourse, bluechecks and memes. Now I want to take a step back to comment more broadly, and then drop the subject a while.

Elon Musk founded SpaceX, which put objects in space. Some engineers there spent thousands of words specifying what is meant by in space, and the company delivered on concrete physical useful things in space, in reality. You can call some of them and check. Elon Musk is what roon calls a "shape rotator".

By contrast, a lot of the people predicting doom for Musk and screaming that he's doing it wrong and he's a terrible person are what roon calls "wordcels", who are great at stringing words together but the words don't seem to have much relation to external reality. Here's a spectacular example:

Maue performs outrage that Twitter is no longer paying people to talk about another group of people who are talking about things related to climate. "The critical work", "the most pivotal" - shut the Hell up, Maue. You are not even wrong. You should have your adjective privileges revoked.

Actual critical work, meanwhile: build nuclear power plants. France has shown this to work. Most objections to nuclear power plants are already disproven in France.

(Regarding the alleged importance of COP27: I looked through its documents for a bit and it does not mention nuclear power in its "Science Day" nor "Decarbonization Day" nor "Solutions Day" sub-conference agendas. COP27 does have a "Gender Day", though. Deeply unserious people.)

Perhaps buying Twitter was a bad idea. Perhaps Elon Musk is going to lose money on it. I don't know. Perhaps national security is going to be involved somehow. There's a whole lot of things I don't know. So I make general inferences from this pair of observations: Musk has shown himself able to deliver physical deliverables that are very difficult, at scale -- while his critics appear to be overwhelmingly useless shitheads like Maue.

I would like to say "that's just a random shithead on Twitter" but it appears to be random shitheads all the way up, and Maue is just a particularly good example to hand. It's shitheads in the newspapers, shitheads among the spokespeople for various organizations, and that one extra-special shithead in Congress who thought it was cool to threaten Musk with the abuse of government power because Musk was not doing enough to stop "disinformation", a fashionable word these shitheads have appropriated to use as a dysphemism for "dissent".

Best wishes to Elon Musk, who isn't nearly as funny as he thinks he is, but is still quite entertaining and vastly preferable to the alternatives on offer.

[annies-scrapbook]

‘autogynephile’ is a dysphemism for ‘woman-identified woman’

[mourning-again-in-america]

it's real tempting to dysphemize the whigs as "those pompous expounders of 'virtue'", but then I'd be making the same mistake of most 20th cent. american countercultural movements--virtue is good, actually, and it's not worth it to destroy what is actually good, just to own the annoying hypocrites who own the academies.

Virtue, properly done, is necessarily Actually Good; just because they who preach it do not do it properly, does not mean that it ought not be done!

[heatwa-ves]

Fighting for my life doing english hw why is it going into so much detail about the origins and use of the word fuck and other dysphemisms for sex

[nanas-45]

The Evolution of 'Fuck': From Medieval Swear to Modern Mainstay

The word "fuck" is a powerful and versatile term in the English language, serving various functions from an intensifier to an expression of disdain. Although its exact origins remain uncertain, the term was first recorded around 1475. Over the centuries, it has evolved significantly in its usage and cultural perception.

Offensiveness and Public Perception

Historically, "fuck" has been regarded as highly offensive. Andrea Millwood Hargrave's 2000 study revealed that it was the third-most-severe profanity in the UK, following closely behind "cunt," with "motherfucker" as a particularly strong example. However, the word's intensity is gradually diminishing, a phenomenon known as the "dysphemism treadmill" or semantic drift, where previously offensive terms become more accepted. In 2005, "fuck" was even included in The Canadian Press's guide, advising journalists to use it sparingly when essential.

Despite its growing acceptance, linguists like Pamela Hobbs observe that the term still retains a level of moral outrage for some, particularly in its more vulgar forms. For "non-users," any use of the term is considered an affront, while "users" might not see it as invoking sexual imagery in its metaphorical uses.

Etymology and Origins

The origins of "fuck" are murky. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that it might be related to Germanic words denoting striking or sexual activity. Germanic cognates include German ficken and Dutch fokken, both referring to sexual activity. Some theories propose that these terms stem from an Indo-European root meaning "to strike," though this is speculative.

There are also various false etymologies, including the urban legend that "fuck" is an acronym from medieval law or royal permissions, which have been debunked. Another legend involves English archers supposedly using "pluck yew" as a defiant gesture, which has no historical basis.

Grammar and Usage

In English grammar, "fuck" is incredibly flexible. It functions as a verb (both transitive and intransitive), noun, adjective, adverb, and interjection. While its literal meaning refers to sexual intercourse, it is often used figuratively to convey strong emotions or to shock. The word can appear in a range of phrases and compounds, including "motherfucker," "fuck off," and "fucking."

Historical Appearances

The term "fuck" has a long history. Dr. Paul Booth's 2015 study identifies the earliest known use with a sexual connotation in English court records from 1310–11. However, the earliest coded appearance is from a 15th-century poem satirizing monks, indicating the term’s use in early English.

In the 16th century, John Florio's Italian–English dictionary included "fuck" alongside other vulgar synonyms, and by the late 18th century, phrases like "I don't give a fuck" began to appear in literature. Notably, Farmer and Henley's 1893 slang dictionary noted that "fuck" was used with even more intensity than "bloody."

A Modern Twist

Interestingly, some research connects the development of speech sounds like "f" and "v" to changes in human diet and dental structure, humorously suggesting that the advent of words like "fuck" might be tied to these physiological changes.

In summary, "fuck" is a word with a rich and evolving history, reflecting shifts in societal attitudes and linguistic usage. Its journey from a potentially taboo term to a more accepted part of everyday language highlights the dynamic nature of language and cultural norms.

[caius-hhhhhh]

Hello. I am here to bother you. Speak into the microphone please 🎤

🙃 What’s a weird fact that you know?

💎  What’s your most prized possession?

🍫 Cheese or chocolate?

🧡 A color you can’t stand?

Thank you for your time. Please help yourself to some post interview shawarma 🥙

(via thysthism on Twitter)

I gave one weird fact for grownupchangeling, but you may have another. One of the many commonly-cited parts of Norse mythology are the einherjar who live in Valhalla. These are the spirits of honoured warriors who are granted immortality and invulnerability by Odin in order to defend the gates of Asgard at Ragnarok. Lesser known are their counterparts: the honoured dead of Folkvanger, ruled by Freyja. We don’t know what her warriors’ duties were, if they would have defended Vanaheim at Ragnarok and served as the other half of the Vanir army. Hilda Ellis Davidson, a folklorist at Cambridge, proposes that because the einherjar had so much to do with war and conflict, their legends were preserved whereas the more peaceful, or simply not-war-related or not-Ragnarok-related warriors’ legends were lost. This at least lines up with a lot of the, not necessarily preserved, but popularly circulated aspects of Norse mythology: the battles and the bloodshed at the deception and the inventions are retold and celebrated whereas seidr (and its feminine connotations.) were neglected in studies and stories. not a historian or practitioner, obviously, I just know enough to fail at writing fanfiction.

I’m not wholly sure what my most prized possession would be. In terms of sentimental value, I have a small box where I keep some of my old cats’ whiskers. For monetary value, I was about to say the most expensive thing I own would be my boots, but actually, I think it’s my degree. By like, a lot more. The thing I would grab first were my house on fire and all my pets were safe would be my laptop, which is an uncreative answer; past that, probably Teddy Homer, but that’s more because if my house had burned down I’d prefer to have something of comfort rather than of value. The thing I would kill everyone in the room and then myself over if it was lost is a dildo.

Chocolate. I actually really hate cheese! I don’t like the way it coagulates when it melts. My previous dysphemism used to be “it’s like semen”, but I made that analogy before I realised I was pan…

I hate blue. I hate blue. That’s why I colour Vox grey, and you can find basically no blue in any of my drawings outside of that Cold Bodies picture; blue is an obnoxiously overused colour that’s EVERYWHERE in clothes and websites and character designs and dust jackets. Whenever I wear blue it washes out my heterochromia. Zero percent of my clothes closet is blue, if I can help it. I’m sorry you had to find out this way lmao

And don’t you worry, I had some shawarma while I was writing this. With tray-baked red pepper and onion. Delicious

[greatbigfeeling]

extremely lukewarm take but i think the best writing is poignant in a way that is presented in a mundane or simple manner, can hook a narrative or ideology; and uses some fuck ass dysphemism/euphemism/idiom in a different context