Holy cow.  I can't believe it has been 3 years since I posted anything on this blog.  The last three years have not been the best (except for 2 new grand babies being born).  Those two little boys were the highlights.  The rest of the days, months and years have been in mostly dark hues or in another word or two, dark,  gloomy , depressing, bleak, sad, unhappy, murky, dim and  shadowy. 
Hopefully 2013 will turn towards the sunshine and lighten things up a bit.

Something old is new again.

I like old things. I like old books, buttons and bric-a-brack...aka knick-knacks. I like looking for old odds and ends at second hand stores. I like to dig deep into the bottom shelves because you never know what your going to find. I call it gently used or rediscovered treasure. Other people call it ephemera. Although the word ephemera usually describes paper I find in my blog surfing that ephemera is used to describe just about anything old that is renewed again. Is the word being used out of text? Technically yes it is but the word does add a bit of mystic to an otherwise old, musty thing of the past. Antique makes me think of something old and worth a lot of money, ephemera sounds mysterious, old and something with a bit of a romantic tinge to it. What do you think?

Main Entry: ephem·era
Pronunciation: \i-ˈfe-mər-ə, -ˈfem-rə\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural ephemera also ephem·er·ae \-mər-ē, -rē\ or ephemeras
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek ephēmera, neuter plural of ephēmeros
Date: 1650
1 : something of no lasting significance —usually used in plural
2 ephemera plural : paper items (as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles

Talk about being dense.

I am currently reading a series of children's books called "The Last Apprentice" written by Joseph Delany . I was reading my book at lunch today and came across a word I had never read before. COPPICED. Any idea what it means? Neither did I. Not only a grove of trees, but I myself, can be dense. Hard to believe isn't it? Well if you didn't know what Coppiced means, it just so happens that after checking my online dictionary I have uncovered this mystery words' function. So read on and learn something new or if you already knew, something old.
COPPICED:ecology
also called Copse, or Thicket,
a dense grove of small trees or shrubs that have grown from suckers or sprouts rather than from seed. A coppice usually results from human woodcutting activity and may be maintained by continually cutting new growth as it reaches usable size.
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): cop·piced; cop·pic·ing
Date: 1538
transitive verb
: to cut back so as to regrow in the form of a coppice
intransitive verb
: to form a coppice; specifically of a tree : to sprout freely from the base

It's saddening what I don't know.

My office cohort, Sheila, was working on a customer file today and had an odd word come up.
Saddening
She asked me, "Is that really a word"? I said, "I don't know. Maybe go on line to the dictionary and look it up".
She did and we were both surprised to find out that it is a real word.
Who knew? Neither one of us that's for sure.
So we both learned a new word today. Mind you the chances of either one of us using it ever again are slight, but never say never. I aim to put it in my Scrabble stash for future use.

Main Entry: sad·den
Pronunciation: \ˈsa-dən\
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): sad·dened; sad·den·ing \ˈsad-niŋ, ˈsa-dən-iŋ\
Date: 1628
transitive verb : to make sadintransitive verb : to become sad

Welcome

WELCOME: Pronunciation: \ˈwel-kəm\
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): wel·comed; wel·com·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English welcumian, wylcumian, from wilcuma, noun
Date: before 12th century
1 : to greet hospitably and with courtesy or cordiality
2 : to accept with pleasure the occurrence or presence of
— wel·com·er noun
Yep, here I go again. Just what I needed...or not.
Sometimes I read a word and I wonder...think... question...."Is that really a word"? ....I always look words up in the dictionary...either on-line or the by the old fashioned way, using an actual ink printed paper book .....so I decided to blog about weird little words I come across...not all will be modern day....in fact some will be from times past....didn't I just say that?....talk about déjà vu.......but they will be or will have been real words from one time or another....So pop in once in a while, occasionally, or when you have a few minutes to spare and read what I have read and discovered and passed on.....you never know what I might conjure up.