Wanted Words

by Jane Farrow | Entertainment |
ISBN: 1550050885 Global Overview for this book
Registered by jessibud of Toronto, Ontario Canada on 9/27/2004
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16 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by jessibud from Toronto, Ontario Canada on Monday, September 27, 2004
If you love playing with language, then this bookring has your name written all over it! These are actually 2 books, based on a call put out to listeners to a local radio programme a few years ago. The call was to come up with words that don't yet exist, to describe things. The response was so overwhelming -- and so hilariously creative! -- that not one, but 2 books came out of it. The books are small, slim and can be read (both of them!) in one sitting, just so you know. From the blurb on the back of book #1:

"Are you a horrible cook? If so, you're a *gournot*. What do you call the noise of an engine starting on a cold morning? *Cranksinatra*. And those coats, seatbelts, and dress hems that hang out of car doors? *Undercarments*. What do you call that last cold blast of winter following the first warm days of spring? *Indian Bummer*."

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/2076562


This is one of my favourite entries; not really a spoiler since both books are filled to the brim with this type of thing:

A listener called in, needing a word to describe "a perilous dance performed on ice or hard-packed snow".
The winning entry was "Icekaputs", and a smattering of the short-list of runners-up included: "asscapades, dance of the sore bum fairies, hopsicle, sliptease...".


You get the picture... :-D
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Tentative list for this little double bookring (PM me if you think it needs tweaking). Please journal when you receive the books and if you can, after you've read them:

1 - deenbat - New Hampshire
2 - chromatographer - Connecticut
3 - Cyberkedi - Georgia
4 - urushiol - Arkansas
5 - Graubart - Texas
6 - hotflash - Arizona
7 - vraciousrdr - Calif
8 - ghaweyn - Colorado
9 - AntOf9 - Colorado
10- Spedbug - Delaware
11- me-Sarah - Idaho -asked to be skipped
12- mssaver - Illinois
13- Miss-R - England - asked to be skipped
14- BrooklinBrat - Ont, Canada
15- ms-attitude-ca - Ont, Canada - asked to be skipped
16- Wordyone - Wisconsin
17- sonia23 - Georgia
18- Shadie - Illinois - - STALLED
19- Ozone-nut - England
20- SirRoy - Ireland

Journal Entry 2 by deenbat from Carlisle, Pennsylvania USA on Thursday, October 14, 2004
This arrived today, safe & sound. Like the ring started by Antof9 for Fumblerules, I think that MrBat and I will enjoy reading this aloud to each other, so the timing is perfect because he has just started his vacation.
Thanks for sharing, jessibud!!

Journal Entry 3 by deenbat from Carlisle, Pennsylvania USA on Sunday, November 7, 2004
could spend far longer with this little treasure, but have decided to send it on its way to chromatographer...

These books were great for keeping MrBat calm and entertained during the commercial breaks of the World Series games... He was particularly fond of namenesia (the inability to recall the name of someone, even though you know his or her face), as he suffers from this perpetually, and was glad to learn its proper name. ;-)

Among my favorites were cranksinatra, chillbrain, and slined, which I get all the time!!

Thanks for sharing, jessibud!

Journal Entry 4 by chromatographer from Middletown, Connecticut USA on Friday, November 12, 2004
I received this book from deenbat, and I'm looking forward to sitting down with it tonight--it's cold, rainy and sleety (is sleety a word?!)--a perfect night for a fun book!!
I can't wait to increase my vocabulary!

Journal Entry 5 by chromatographer from Middletown, Connecticut USA on Saturday, December 4, 2004
I'm sending the two "Wanted Words" books off to Cyberkedi today!

These were fun books! Enjoy!

Journal Entry 6 by Cyberkedi from Atlanta, Georgia USA on Saturday, December 11, 2004
Just received in the mail. This and its companion, Wanted Words 2, look like a couple of winners! I may have trouble giving them up!

Journal Entry 7 by Cyberkedi from Atlanta, Georgia USA on Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Fabulous and funny! Anybody who likes the "Sniglets" series will enjoy this book. Some of the explanations and letters did get a bit long, but all in all it is a lot of fun.

Journal Entry 8 by jessibud from Toronto, Ontario Canada on Friday, January 14, 2005
I interrupt this bookring to bring you a flash bulletin! This morning on my way to work, I heard my (CBC radio) morning man say that yesterday, he was speaking to Jane Farrow (author of these 2 books) because several listeners had emailed in, wanting a new word to describe the "weirdly warm weather in the middle of winter" that we've had here the last couple of days.


You see, yesterday (Thursday), we had record-breaking warm temperatures for January (+18 degrees Celcius. That's 64F! ) yet today, it was bitter cold (-8 C/17.6F, with a windchill factor of minus 18C/ -4F !!! ). Sigh...

So...stay tuned, there may be another entry coming....

Journal Entry 9 by jessibud from Toronto, Ontario Canada on Monday, January 17, 2005
Well, this morning, I heard several responses, to the call for a new word to describe the weirdly warm weather we had last week, here in Toronto. The very best, in my opinion, were these:

"June-uary"
"Winteruptus"

Gotta love it! :-)


You'll be glad to know that we are now back in the deep freeze....brrrrr

Journal Entry 10 by Cyberkedi at Sent in the mail in Atlanta, Georgia -- Controlled Releases on Monday, January 24, 2005

Released 19 yrs ago (1/25/2005 UTC) at Sent in the mail in Atlanta, Georgia -- Controlled Releases

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

Will mail to continue the bookring.

Journal Entry 11 by MadameUrushiol from Milford, New Hampshire USA on Monday, January 31, 2005
Just arrived in a Jessibud's bookring--looks like great fun!

Journal Entry 12 by MadameUrushiol from Milford, New Hampshire USA on Wednesday, February 16, 2005
What a fun book! Both my husband and I enjoyed it. Sent it on its way to Graubart today!

Journal Entry 13 by Graubart from Glen Rose, Texas USA on Thursday, February 24, 2005
Just received these books from Urushiol today. Looks like fun.

Journal Entry 14 by Graubart from Glen Rose, Texas USA on Friday, March 11, 2005
I was going to post my favorite word from these books, but there were just too many. These books are funny. Off to hotflash to continue the bookring.

Journal Entry 15 by LynnWrites from Tucson, Arizona USA on Friday, March 18, 2005
My turn at this book ring. Looks like a fun little book! Thanks.

Journal Entry 16 by LynnWrites from Tucson, Arizona USA on Tuesday, March 22, 2005
This is a unique and enjoyable little collection of creativity. I was not only delighted by the imaginative new words coined by so many creative Canadians (so...is it the long, boring winters ???), but also by both the number of 'gaps' in our language and the annoyance caused by these gaps. Among my personal favorites are "ponis" for the balding guy's scraggly pontail and "line-whine" for the fax screech on a phone line. I loved many of the entries that were not chosen as best even more than the words that were featured...the list is too long to journal.
I will start the second book of this series shortly and then pass them both along.

Journal Entry 17 by LynnWrites from Tucson, Arizona USA on Monday, March 28, 2005
On the way to vraciousrdr. Enjoy.

Journal Entry 18 by vraciousrdr from Vista, California USA on Thursday, April 14, 2005
looking forward to reading

Journal Entry 19 by vraciousrdr from Vista, California USA on Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Sorry for the delay in reading and passing along this bookring - I've been in and out of town for the last month and am finally back again before I have yet to head out next month again.

Thanks for starting this ring jessibud! What an interesting concept and I'm so bummed that I am not able to listen in to the radio program. I loved all the words but most especially the stories behind the words. Several were laugh out loud funny. Hosteria was one of the funniest stories.

Journal Entry 20 by vraciousrdr at on Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Released 18 yrs ago (5/11/2005 UTC) at

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

passing along the bookring

Journal Entry 21 by ghaweyn from Colorado Springs, Colorado USA on Saturday, May 21, 2005
I got both books a few days ago and will work on them soon. Thanks.

Journal Entry 22 by ghaweyn from Colorado Springs, Colorado USA on Sunday, July 3, 2005
This was a great little book. I love making up words so this was a fun read. i will mail these on when I have an address.

Journal Entry 23 by Antof9 from Lakewood, Colorado USA on Monday, July 11, 2005
First, ghaweyn -- how did I miss that you were in Colorado Springs?! I feel so clueless! We could have done a hand-off in Castle Rock! Oh well. Sometime soon, maybe :)

Second, thanks, thanks, thanks jessibud! As a self-proclaimed maker-upper of words, this ring is right up my alley. As proof of my weirditude (!), I give you the creator of "hijackination" (when a forum thread goes off its intended course), "trashicity" (as in: I was appalled by the utter trashicity of this book), and "organizatrix" (a female organizer extraordinaire). Thus, I am fully qualified to be a member of this bookring :)

I'm trying to whip through some books-made-into-movies so I can release them for my July Summer Blockbuster Release Challenge, but I'll definitely get to these within the month. They shouldn't take long, and should be very entertaining :)

Journal Entry 24 by Antof9 from Lakewood, Colorado USA on Thursday, October 27, 2005
So I know you all think I'm the biggest slacker in the kingdom for not reading and journalling these books right away. Interestingly enough, I actually did read book 1 (this) right away (put it this way -- it was while laying out in the sun!), and then I started book 2 and read about half of it. And then the worst thing happened! The book gremlins hid it from me! *ACK* What's a (mostly) reliable BookCrosser to do?!

Hide her head in the sand and hope the problem goes away, of course. You think I should have written my journal entry on this book and then found the other? Yeah, right. Like you'd have done that. . .

Anyway, I have them both in my little hot hands, and I'll write my real journal entries now.

As a lover of words and made-up words (when used appropriately, of course -- not when used with grownups as if it were a real word), I really did like these books. Interestingly enough, I found that I didn't always agree with the radio station's choice of the best word for the definition! Because they listed them all, I was able to choose one I liked better many times :)

Words that stuck out and I marked them with a bookmark:
  • "Amalgamot": the combining of French and English words with similar meanings to create a two-word phrase that means nothing
  • "Herbicidal Maniac": a person who kills plants; the opposite of a green thumb. (alas, this is me!)
  • "Napsnap": the full body twitch and jerk that often snaps a person out of sleep just as he or she is drifting off. Sometimes accompanied by a dream of falling or colliding with something. This is one of the words where I wholeheartedly disagreed with the choice that "won". There were a ton of better words listed for this -- narcospasm, pajamawhamma, sleepjerky, slumberjerk, slumberjolt, and sleeplash, to name a few.
  • "Playdirt": the waxy rubbings that come off lottery tickets when they're scratched.

This is getting in an envelope to SpedBug today, and will be shipped at the same time I send the second set of m-bags to our friends in New Zealand.

Journal Entry 25 by SpedBug from Wilmington, Delaware USA on Wednesday, November 2, 2005
I received this and "Wanted Words 2" in the mail, today. They look like fun -can't wait to sit down and read them. Thanks for including me! :)

Journal Entry 26 by SpedBug from Wilmington, Delaware USA on Monday, November 14, 2005
What amusing books. I was tickled from cover to cover to read all the different submissions (some of which, I felt, were better than the winners).

Mailed off to mssaver, today. For any interested in tracking its journey to Illinois, here's the USPS Delivery Confirmation #03051720000256769511

Journal Entry 27 by mssaver from Chicago, Illinois USA on Saturday, November 19, 2005
Yea! The books are here. I can hardly wait to dig in.

Like Antof9, I'm a "maker-upper of words," too. My words actually make it into print occasionally. The Chicago Tribune has a "challenge" in the Q section each Sunday--not always making up words--but I show up often in the honorable mentions and sometimes win a prize. In the October 30 edition, I got mentioned for "emaginary friend: the gorgeous, rich, witty companion you know only through the Internet." I took first place in the September 25 edition for inventing a new game that would become a new craze like Sudoku. My game was Udopu: Match celebrity photos in a grid with the stupidest things each has done or said. (My grand prize, by the way, was a pack of mechanical pencils and three erasers!)

Now on to the books!

Journal Entry 28 by mssaver from Chicago, Illinois USA on Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Delightful! My favorites included bagmata, namenesia, and undercarments. I also liked sheetfaced (having lines on one's face made by pillows and sheets), but I thought rumplesheetskin was an even better entry. I'll zip these off to Miss-R as soon as I have a mailing address.

Journal Entry 29 by mssaver from Chicago, Illinois USA on Friday, December 9, 2005
On its way to BrooklinBrat

Journal Entry 30 by BrooklinBrat from Brooklin, Ontario Canada on Friday, December 16, 2005
Arrived in the mail today, with Wanted Words 2.

I look forward to these. I have a couple of bookring booksin front of them, but these look like the type of books you can "squeeze" in between...

Journal Entry 31 by BrooklinBrat from Brooklin, Ontario Canada on Thursday, January 26, 2006
These were fun! I could so identify with "showincidence!" It seems every time I sit down to watch tv with my kids they're watching the ONLY episode of their show that I've ever seen!

Sorry for the additional time it took me to get to these...

ms-attitude-ca asked to be skipped, but I have Wordyone's address now, so it should be on its way by tomorow at the latest.

Journal Entry 32 by BrooklinBrat from Brooklin, Ontario Canada on Saturday, January 28, 2006
Mailed to WordyOne 1/27/06.

Journal Entry 33 by Wordyone from West Bend, Wisconsin USA on Tuesday, February 7, 2006
This arrived today. I look forward to getting into it. Thanks, Jessibud for starting this and BrooklinBrat for sending it on to me.

Journal Entry 34 by Wordyone from West Bend, Wisconsin USA on Friday, February 10, 2006
I loved this book! A fun, fascinating look at language.

I've PM'ed Sonia23 for her address and, as soon as I get it, much as I hate to let this book go, I'll send it on its way.

Update: Sent to Sonia23 on 2/14/06

Journal Entry 35 by sonia23 from Hiram, Georgia USA on Monday, February 20, 2006
Received this and Volume 2 today. Looks like a quick read. I'll post again after reading.

Journal Entry 36 by sonia23 from Hiram, Georgia USA on Sunday, June 18, 2006
I am soooo sorry Jessiebud! I didn't realize I hadn't journaled again to let you know I'd mailed the book. Bad sonia23! Bad! I did mail it on March 6th to Shadie. Again, sorry for the delay with the journal entry!

Journal Entry 37 by Shadie from Indian Trail, North Carolina USA on Monday, July 17, 2006
Fun book! I use a lot of these words... ;)


I'll be sending this off to ozone-nut soon! :)

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