Registered: Oct 2001
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Word Fun

Occasionally I make crossword puzzles for a very small audience of experts in the field who are always very eager to let me know that my puzzles are so easy as to be intended for morons and that they worked them in nine minutes and three seconds using a pen which would not allow erasures. So I take a fiendish glee in making them difficult. Today I was making a list of words for my next crossword and looking for things that had obscure meanings. Thought that I would list a few of them for your amusement. Don’t feel badly if you don’t get any of them---they are pretty obscure.

Where and what is the “Doomsday Clock” and what time does it show now?

Who is “Eva Braun”?

For what is “Schroedinger’s Cat” famous?

What does the “Mann Act” forbid in the US?

What is a “fatwa”?

What famous author said on his deathbed when asked if he wanted a priest “No, even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six”?

What famous author’s last words were “Either that wallpaper goes or I do”?

Who was “Oddjob”?

In Aussie slang what is a “quandong”?

What is the “samizdat”?

Who was “Satchmo”?

What mental image or impression of successful lovemaking is a part of Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”?

Of course we all know that a “henry” is a unit of inductance such that a variation of one ampere per second causes the creation of one volt of potential but what does it mean in London street slang?

For what was U.S. engineer “John C. Garand” famous?

Have you ever been called a “galah”? What would it mean?

“Fizzical culturist” was the U.S. black slang of the 1940s for what?

Do you know the difference in being “gazumped” or “gazundered” in a real estate deal?

Would you really know what the London street slang word “ganny” meant?

Who was the “Brockton blockbuster “ in U.S. boxing?

Would you recognize a condition called “Brahms and Liszt” in Cockney rhyming slang?


Of course you realize that the questions on the crossword won’t be in exactly this way of I can find a way to make them sneakier. For instance in the next to last entry above I would put only the name of the boxer in the definitions column and the crossworder would have to put “Brockton blockbuster “ in the puzzle.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
Posts: 13018

Who is “Eva Braun”? - Hitler's missus

For what is “Schroedinger’s Cat” famous? - Being half dead.... maybe

What is a “fatwa”? - Islamic Death Sentence

What famous author’s last words were “Either that wallpaper goes or I do”? - Oscar Wilde I think.

Of course we all know that a “henry” is a unit of inductance such that a variation of one ampere per second causes the creation of one volt of potential but what does it mean in London street slang? - An eighth of an ounce of hash/marijuana as in Henry the VIII. Under the same schema, a Louis is one sixteenth of an ounce. Can we guess what a "daughter" is?

Would you recognize a condition called “Brahms and Liszt” in Cockney rhyming slang? - yes.

Last edited by philjit on 07-01-2003 at 12:03 AM

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: UK
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Are you sure 'ganny' is London slang and not Northern slang?

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: US
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(sledge)
Ms Braun: short, angry men come to mind....
schroedinger's cat: animal cruelty has never been so intriguing
oddjob: I envy his hat.
for the rest, i'm lost.....
(/sledge)

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Location: NH
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Oddjob was an assassin/servant in 'Goldfinger'.

Satchmo was Louis Armstrong.

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Doomsday Clock - a measure by the union of concerned scientists (I think) of the nearness to all out nuclear exchange or "doomsday. Not sure what time it shows, but last time I looked it was 12 minutes to midnight.

"Mann Act" forbids the interstate transportation of a female person for purposes of prostitution.

"fatwa" a religious ruling by an islamic iman or ayatollah regarding a particular issue.

"No, even in the valley of the shadow of death two and two do not make six." Tolstoy

Quandong - fruit of the quandong tree, either red or blue. Slang: gay person.

samizdat - underground, unofficial and/or banned press

John Garand - garand rifle

galah - rose breasted cockatoo of australia

fizzical culturist - wife or woman in your life

gazumped - after verbal acceptance of an offer to purchase by the seller, before contracts are signed, the seller reneges in acceptance of another offer. Gazunder - attempt by buyer to force a lower price after acceptance of offer to sell by seller at a set price.

brockton blockbuster - rocky marcianno

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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Wow! What a bunch of answers and so quickly!

The Doomsday Clock is pictured in each issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists since 1945. It is intended to indicate how close the world is to atomic anhialation. In 1945 it was set at 11:52
and at the height of the cold war was advanced to 11:58, after glasnost it was retrograded to 11: 50 and has recently been moved back to 11:48. SS got this one perfect.

Eva Braun was Hitler's mistress and who presumably died with him. Phil got that without a hitch.

No one has even come close on Schoedinger's cat so I will leave that unanswered for the moment.

What does the Mann Act forbid. SS got that. It forbids the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes. I lost one girl friend once because I made her get out of the car and walk across the Red River bridge into Oklahoma. It was just a joke.

Phil wasn't quite right on the fatwa according to my sources. SS was totally right. A fatwa is a pronouncement by a recognized Islamic theological authority on the interpretation and meaning of Islamic law it doesn't have to involve the death penalty.

As SS devined it was Leo Tolstoy who said "No, even in the valley of the shadow of death two plus two does not make six."

Phil was perfectly right that it was Oscar Wilde who said on his deathbed that "Either that wallpaper goes or I do".

Oddjob was indeed the servant to Golfinger as both D_I and Lu remembered.

On quandong my source says that it is Aussie slang for someone who does not speak up to buy a round at the bar in his turn---a sponger. I will not deny the fact that there is a quandong tree but my source Dr. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, who compiled "Brewer's Dictionary of Fact and Fable" doesn't say anything about it indicating homosexuality.

Samizdat is a shortened form of samizdatelstro and is indeed an underground news source as SS says.

Yup, Satchmo was indeed Louis Armstrong as D_I noted.

No one got the mental image of successful love making in "For Whom the Bell Tolls". I thought everyone would get that one.

According to Dr Brewer a "ganny" is a portion of canabis from Afghanistan . The word has been in use in England since the 1980s according to the book. But you are right Phil it doesn't specifically say London it just says England and it is very possible as loose as you Limeys are with the language that it couild have another meaning in London from what it has in the rest of the Island.

Right John C Garand made the M1 or Garand rifle.

A galah is a silly person in Aussie slang according to Dr. Brewer and his successors.

Nope. A fizzical culturist was a bartender to the US blacks in the 1940s.

SS got this one dead on. Gazumped and gazundered.

Yep, the Brockton Blockbuster was none other than Rocky Marciano

No one got the cockney rhyming meaning of Brahms and Liszt but Phil says he knows and I don't doubt it. Phil were you born within the sound of Bow Bells?

Congrats---now tell my about the cat. Smug would have eaten that one up.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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After re-readin Lu's post I am convinced that Lu knows all about Schroedinger's cat but just didn't print it out.

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oxsan


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oxsan, I think my answer about Shroedinger's Cat shows I know all about it too.

On the 'ganny' thing, are you sure it's the name for a portion of draw (another slang), Henry is certainly the name for draw as I said above, specifcally an eighth of an ounce.

Brahms and Liszt - Pissed.

And no I was not born within the sound of the Bow Bells. Hell I was not even born in London oxsan, I am sad to say that I am a "mockney". (have you heard that one before?).

I shall be in Greenwich and Blackheath on Saturday oxsan getting married near the Royal Observatory. This piece of info has nothing to do with the questions of course, but I thought I would say it anyways.

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I know none of those. God bless my public education.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Best wishes to you on your marriage and to your bride.

As to the "henry" and the"ganny" I woiuld be inclined to accept your experiential street knowledge rather than the research product of the editors of Dr. Brewer's interesting volume. The editors may very well not be able to tell the difference between canabis and heroin.

As to the cat you are most certainly also in the know---you hit the crux of Schroedinger catness and it went right by me. You are far too subtle.

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oxsan


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I lost one girl friend once because I made her get out of the car and walk across the Red River bridge into Oklahoma. It was just a joke. --oxsan


haha!! That's awesome.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Dad's a playa.

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Schroedinger's Cat had the unique experience of being alive and dead at the same time (in theory anyway). It was part of a thought experiment where a cat was placed in a sealed container with some decaying radioactive element in a glass vial, a geiger counter, and a hammer. If the geiger counter detected a certain amount of radiation, it would break the vial, killing the cat with radiation. Since the amount of radiation being released is unknown, there is no way to tell if the cat is alive or dead, and only by opening the container does he take one form of the other, but as long as he is not observed, he is both alive and dead at the same time. I think this has something to do with quantum fizziks, but I'm not sure.

Also, though we all now know who Satchmo is, "Satchmo" is short for "Satchel Mouth." From blowing in his trumpet so much, his cheeks grew soft and droopy, looking as if they were satchels, thus "Satchel Mouth."

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Registered: Sep 2001
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This may be a porky but anyways.....

quote:

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Nixon and Satchmo

While vice-president, Nixon had a strange encounter with jazz great Louis Armstrong. Armstrong was on a "goodwill tour" for the US state department, and was waiting in the VIP Lounge of the Paris airport with his troupe of musicians. The story, as told by Armstrong's keyboard player Tommy Flanagan, is that Nixon walked into the lounge with his secret service guards, saw Armstrong, and immediately rushed up to him. Nixon effusively praised the pot-smoking jazz trumpeter, telling him he was "a national treasure... like the Statue of Liberty!"

It turned out that they were all on the same plane, going to Moscow. Nixon claimed to be Armstrong's "biggest fan," and repeatedly asked if there was anything he could do for his musical hero. Armstrong said "Yeah! Would you mind carrying these?" and handed Nixon a few pieces out of their large pile of luggage. Nixon happily agreed, never knowing that he had proudly carried the whole band's pot stash right through Russian customs.

---

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quote:

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Originally posted by skalie
This may be a porky but anyways...

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Willimo, has laid out the Schroedinger's cat experiment. Congrats Willimo.

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Samizdat is Russian for "it publishes itself." Banned articles would be copied onto toilet paper or such and passed on to trusted friends. An airplane is a samolët, or "it flies itself," and samovar for making tea means "it boils itself." Sam- is related to English "same" and indicates a reflexive verb (or verb cum noun).

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