Acephalous

MLAise, n.

An early symptom of the disease born of mass desperation, MLAria.  Previously only presented at the end of the calendar year, but new disease vectors have it appearing at the beginning.

The OED as a Source of Constant Amusement

avast, phr.

Naut.

[prob. a worn-down form of Du. hou'vast, houd vast, hold fast: cf. Du. hou stop! stay! and houvast cramp-iron.]

Hold! stop! stay! cease!

I will!  I swear!  I just wanted to be sure what it meant!  I'm holding! stopping! staying! ceasing!

The Very Best of Acephalous 2005

YES, I'M HUMORING YOU

• My Morning: A Play in One Uncomfortable Act
• Disadventure, Disaddendum, Dismoralized, & Disinsomnia: A Play (thus far) in Four Acts
• A Day in the Life of your Average Academic
• Acephalous' Index: Part I,  Part II
• Fuck Act Theory: Part I, Part II
• An Undergraduate Honors Thesis Gone Terribly, Terribly Wrong (Now with Annotations)
• How to Open an Academic Essay: The Series
• Theory Comics: Freud, Derrida
• Lying at 30,000 ft.
• Course Descripton: Piracy Studies 100
• Anatomy of a Troll
• Guidelines for the Proper Defacement of Other People's Stuff
• jimy666izstoned@gmail.com: An Epistolary Romance
• Well, Who Would Conservatives Have Us Footnote?
• Lord Stanley and the Catapult Gambit
• Keith Herandez Up-Ends a Century of Feminist Progress
• A Lexigraphical Lament About Probationer Prosody
• Save Academic Freedom: Expel Hippies, Communists from UCLA
• "Running Amok, 368"
• Building Communities through Hate
• Graduate Students Love Fun Too
• Dude. Dude?  Dude. Dude. (Annotated)
• Live-Blogging Super Bowl XXXX
• A Thanksgiving Prayer
• The Impossible James
• Bosoms & the Aesthetic Faculty (circa 1885)
• Life in the Kenning Factory
• Woe unto Ye Beetles of South America!

 

NARCISSISM UNLEASHED

• How Acephalous Lost His Head
• Why He's the Last Person you oughta Respect
• How He Was Nearly Flattened Headless
• How He Fared Under the Knife
• Why He Puts the "der" in "Derridean"
• Why He's in Favor of Stumbling
• Why He "Did Theory"
• Why He Doesn't "Do Theory" Anymore
• Why Deaf Men Are Breast Men (& The Novelizaton)
• What the Five Year Rule Is
• Books He Lives With, Dies By
• His Day, In Haiku
• His Life as a John Hughes Film
• His Bookshelves, Described in Excrutiating Detail
• How He Coerces Congeniality
• How He Handles New Data, Old Certainties, & Familiar Places
• How the ANALOGICAL :: THE PERSONAL
• How the Personal is Etymological:

appaumy

bebaste

loppard

placula

hymnicide

neoconocon

 

PEDANTIC, BUT EFFECTIVE

I.

GENERALLY

• The Theory of the Tyrrany of the Regime of Meaning
• Citational Difficulties & What They Say, Suggest, Identify or Aver
• No, You Weren't Thrown a Curve
• A Xenotheological Romance
• History of the Great American Novel
• Live-Blogging the MLA: 

1. The Prelude
2. These Walls are Paper-Thin 
3. Lindsay Waters Count 
4. Contemporary Fiction & The Novel of Ideas 
5. The Random Example Who is that Guy? 
6. Book-Browsing & Bird Shit I Can't Believe I'm Telling You This 
7. Mistaken Assumptions 
8. With Nary a Whisper Blogging & Creature Comforts

II.

THEORETICALLY

• Ersatz Theoretical Ecumenicalism: Argument in the Age of Mechanical Interaction
• Historicisms Old & New
• New Historicism: A Reader's Guide
• My Hatred of Chiasmus and My Chiasmus of Hatred
• Useable vs. Historicial Pasts
• Père Foucault Stomps Fils, Gloats
• Theory & Literary Modernism

III.

POPULARLY

• Festivus and Literary Modernism
• Deadwood and to Whom its Dialogue is Beholden
• House as Bizarro-Quijote
• Teaching Melville in Madrasas
• Good Grief: Peanuts and Postwar Ennui
• Philip Roth, Sinclair Lewis & The Detail Hounds
• The Mirror of Flebotinum
• Rape in Science Fiction
• Comic Book Rape

IV.

DISSERTATIONALLY

• Stick it to the Historians
• Doubling London: History Is Become Narrative
• Grit for Future Gears!
• Super-Adequate Structural Homologies
• Historians, Start Your Engines
• The Consistency Fetish
• The Horatio Alger Hoax

V.

SERIALLY

THE STONING OF ADAM ROBERTS 

Part I

Part II

Part III

THEORY'S EMPIRE

 Deaf Culture

It's the Erudition, Dumb Ass

Fact Checking Fukuyama

LITERARY INTEREST

 Part I

Part II

Part III

 

YELLING FIRE IN CROWDED THEATERS (BECAUSE WHY NOT?)

• KING KONG
• THE GENE WOLFE EXPERIENCE

1. On Terrible Neologisms & Stylistic Inconsistency
2. Rich on Wolfe
3. Stupid, Cretinous Cancer Boy

• PSYCHOANALYSIS: THE MOVIE

1. Psychoanalysis as Idee Fixe
2. How much more Lacan before Someone Resorts to Violence?
3. Take Pill, Lose Memory, Gain Bliss
4. The Iatrogenic Follies
5. The Psychoanalytic Unconscious?  A Terrible Idea
6. The Adaptive Unconscious?  Not a Terrible Idea
7. Psychoanalysis is Dead!  Long Live—Wait, Nevermind
8. The Power of Psychoanalytic Theory

• THE PASSION OF DE LILLO

1. DeLillo, Pillow. Pillow, DeLillo
2. Sermon on the Mound

• GENERAL RELEASE

1. On Being Cowed by an Identitarian Critique
2. Fighting Fire with—The Aisles! They're Both on Fire!
3. Non-Eclectic Eclecticism
4. Spake Heech or Honest Mistake?
5. So Now You Care About Literature
6. Aggressively Masturbatory Fiction
7. Another Maginot Line?

"WRITING" THE DISSERTATION

• The Merry Go Aground
• How to Drink the Dissertation Away
• How to Revise the Dissertation Away

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

• Modernist Autobiography
• Blogging Derails Unpromising Careers Too

 VERY IMPORTANT THING TO KEEP IN MIND: POSTS ON THE VISUAL RHETORIC OF FILMS AND COMICS HAVE THEIR OWN SPECIAL PLACE AND ARE THEREFORE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS LIST. YOU MAY FIND THEM HERE:

A Day in the Life of a College Student, Circa 1928

Jim:  Andy was lit up like a church last night!

Jim #2:  Was he?  I can't remember.  I'd wet my goozle with some hard knockout drops soon as the sun dropped.

Andy:  (stumbling in)  So I drank some corn juice, I remember that much . . .

Sam:  'Pifflicated, you were!

Andy:  I was at that.  I was seeing snakes for sure.  What happened to Mary?

All:  Let's not talk about the after-date.

Andy:  Why not?  She was strong for lovin' last I recall.  (a confuzzled look crosses his face)  I was . . .

Sam #2:  You're no big butter and egg man from out West anymore.

Andy:  What's your insinnuendo?  I showed some mean stuff and now she just gives me air?

Jim:  You shouldn't have told her 'bout your surety.  She thinks you a chicken duster now.

Andy:  I'm no . . . I suppose it's not worth discussing.  I'm not sloptimist enough to think I can open her gate now. 

Jim #2:  Plus Jim over there told her you were a chest-pounder.

Andy:  Why'd you go and do that?  Drift, brother, and close the door behind you.  (Jim leaves.  Andy turns to the Sams)  What happened last night?  Which slicker brought panther-sweat to our private tunk?

Sam:  You did.

Andy:  I did?

Sam #2:  You came blustering in about not cookie-pushing for any more high higs and how you were coming to this and every future rub stag. 

Andy:  She was a knock-out and a darb, but my father isn't paying this grill four thousand a year for me to be some rare lady's tea hound.  I mean, she knows her oil . . .

Jim #2:  She is full of vinegar.

Sam #2:  And she never breaks a wing.

Andy:  But she gives a lot of house. 

Sam #2:  That's not what I heard tell. 

Andy:  Where's your muffler?

Sam #2:  Sorry.  I can be such a sock.  You want to join our cram tonight?

Jim #2:  You should.  You're on the mat and Sam really knows his onions.

Andy:  I should.  I don't want to get a letter from His Highness.

Sam:  You're next invite to the Dean's formal will be your last. 

Andy:  (slumps)  This Jewish engineering has me down on all fours.  Don't get me wrong.  The professor's pretty hot.  When we chum he has the oil and keeps cramming.  But I thought his would be a pipe and now it's all whip and over.

Sam #2:  Just be sure to bone and you won't get a footing.

Jim:  (runs in)  C'mon, peaches, here's your can!  (Jim #2, Sam, Sam #2 and Andy give chase.  Homosocial hilarity ensues.)

Inspired by China Mieville's Iron Council, a Word! Gyronny! Huzzah!

This isn't an actual entry.  It's only an annoyance with the OED's definition of "geruda":

Of an escutcheon: Divided into or having gyrons; gyronny of eight, having eight gyrons, i.e. each quarter divided diagonally by lines meeting in the fesse-point.

I just want to extend my thanks and appreciation to the OED for the absolute uselessness of that definition...bah, ugh, fie or something.

A Most Manly and Anglo-Saxon Affliction

I would be writing more, but I've had a painfully sore throat which has prevented me from even considering the production of speech.  Spoken or written.

"Can a throat be so sore its owner's reluctant to type?"  I'd wager the answer's "Yes, a throat can be that sore."  The reason's more complicated than you might imagine.

First, the owner of the sore throat must contend with History.  Both "sore" and "throat" originate in languages unpronouncable to anyone afflicted with a sore throat.  Were I suffering such soreness in 897 C.E. and had the unenviable task of requesting assistance from the local barber, the odds of actual communication would be long.  The word "throat," you see, derives from the world Old English verb "to swell."  I would demand he somehow alleviate the pain in my sore swelling and point vigorously to my throat.  But "sore" also means "inflammation," so the odds are I would point to my "inflamed swelling" with a redundancy almost designed to confuse and infuriate my barber who, after all, is only equipped to shave and slice.  No matter how inflamed my swelling, I think my barber would be right to insist that there's no a damn thing he can do to alleviate it which won't also result in my death, his arrest, then his death.

So this most manly affliction would've been painful to pronounce with recourse to only the rasp of Germanic phonemes; and even if I managed pronunciation, the odds of those phonemes cohering into an intelligible utterance are slim.  But it's even more complicated still. 

When functionally deaf people write and type they often subvocalize.  Linguists believe that this practice is the result of, well, the fact that unlike the members of the hearing community, the deaf have to learn to associate the phonemes on the page with the phonemes that they hear in order to reproduce them.  When a hearing person learns to read, they associate the letters on the page with the sounds that they hear; when a deaf person learns to read, they associate the letters on the page with the hours and hours of endless toil in a speech therapy lab.  I see the letters, but instead of hearing them inside my head I produce them, silently, with my mouth.  I don't know why I do this, but it means that if I'm not careful I move my mouth and throat when I read and write.

That folks is why writing with a sore throat hurts.

neoconocon, n.

1.  An unabridged concordance to the complete works of Leo Straus.

2.  A meeting of vast right-wing Jewish conspiracy, attrib. to gossip after delivery of President's Daily Briefing, esp. 2000-2008.

1989 Alan Bloom, Upon Reading His Mail Fuckin' A!  My invite to Neoconocon 1990!  1996 Paul Wolfowitz, To Self Whilst Deep In Thought I bet Derrida has a deconstructocon but will those closeminded communists in the Academy compile a neoconocon?  Not bloodly likely.  I'll show them though.  They want a deconstructocon?  They will have a Deconstructocon!  Ha!  Ha ha!  Ha ha ha ha ha!  1999 Texas Governor George W. Bush, Upon Reading His Mail Fuckin' A!  Another fuckin' invitation to Neoconocon 2000?  Don't they know what a compassionate conservative is?  I can't be seen with these Jewish intellectuals!  Do they want me to commit political suicide!  Jesus F. Christ!  What?  Oh, yeah, sorry sir.

hymnicide

nonce-wd.

The 'murdering' of a hymn, i.e. by alteration or performance. 

1989  Otis Redding Fan Club President-For-Life, Upon Hearing Michael Bolton's "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay" HYMNICIDE!  1999 Axl Rose, Upon Hearing Sheryl Crow's "Sweet Child of Mine" HYMNICIDE!  2001 Joan Jett, Upon Hearing Britney Spears "I Love Rock And Roll" HYMNICIDE!  2002 Nation of Ireland, Upon Hearing Johnny Cash's "Danny Boy" HYMNICIDE!  2003 Yusuf Islam, nee Cat Stevens, Upon Hearing Sheryl Crow's "First Cut Is The Deepest" HYMNICIDE!  2005 Sheryl Crow, Upon Not Ever Hearing Anyone Cover Any Of Her Crap Songs Hymnicide?  Somebody?  Anybody?

placula, Biol.

Name for the embryo of Calcispongiæ at that stage in its development when it has the form of a plate or disc.  Hence placular, placulate adjs., having the form of a placula.

1984 Kindergarten Sweetheart, The Tire Swing You 'tupid!  You Placula!  1989 Fourth Grade Sweetheart, to A. Cephalous, The Monkey Bars Your head looks funny.  I gonna call you Placula! 1991 Sarah Robineaux, The Concession Stand We've been steady for four days and you still won't buy me Lemonheads or Red Hots you placulate-looking fuck?  1994 Coach Morris to stunned, disoriented A. Cephalous, Rainy Day P.E. Class Badmiton does not, I say, does not require balls!  Do you have balls, Mr. Placula?  Do you want to keep them?  Complain about a birdy to the balls.  Tell me again how it placulates your precious family heirlooms.  Please, I want to hear.  So do Sarah, I suspect.  1994 Sarah Robineaux to A. Cephalous, Rainy Day P.E. Class Coach Morris, can I be excused?  The farther I am from this, from this, from this, flat-featured placulate the better.

loppard, n.

[LOP v.¹ + -ARD, after pollard.]

[No known quotations of "loppard" extant previous to fictional citations below.  Chance "loppard" not actual word but insertion by Dr. William Chester Minor.  Perhaps actual word e.g. the result of some drunk from southern Eng. inverting initial and secondary consonant sound as southern Eng. drunks are wont to do.]

A tree with a top lopped or cut off; a pollard

1991 Big-Mouthed, Huger-Teethed Jessica Babineaux to A. Cephalous, After  Haircut What, you thought Supercuts wouldn't turn you into a fucking loppard? 1994 Kenny Almond, Baseball Coach, to Prone, Bleeding-From-Mouth A. Cephalous American Legion Regional Semi-Finals You're lucky you only lost your teeth; that monster at the plate could've turned you into a fucking loppard 1996 A. Cephalous, backstage After Guided by Voices Concert Bob Loppard!  Ba-a-a-a-ab La-a-a-pird!  You fucking rule!

bebaste, v.

(bI'beIst)

 1. (of gravy) to moisten (a roasting joint, etc.) by the application of melted fat, or any other liquid, so as to keep it from burning, and improve its flavor.

2. (of sheep) to mark with tar

3. (of cudgel) to beat soundly, thrash

1575  Barclay Shyp of Folys I. 100 Bebaast the fat pygge orr I wyl bebaast ye blynde ond bebaast ye with foules feders. 1590 Greene Mourn. Garm. (1616) 2 The prime of his yeeres, bebasted from his forehead, skid acros the floore into the roste bebasted that morne.  1735 Oldys Raleigh (R.) Having their naked bodies bebasted with burning bacon, an animated Wagstaffe bebasted himself with calculated refinement.   1884 J. Rae Contemp. Socialism 376 A sound system of working class insurance must be devised, which shall indemnify them against all bebastings.  1908 L. Chattock Hist. of Easy Offense IV 91 Your bebasting disturbs my equanimity, hurts my sensibilities and causes slight irritation, so with ruffled mind I implore you to vex me no more with your gravy, tar and blows.

New Feature: The A. Cephalous Word of the Every Other Day or So

Frustrated by other "word of the day" services?  Tired of receiving daily emails from that most august of all dictionaries, the OED, in which you learn that "place" n. means "Space.  Extension in two (or three) directions; room"? 

Have I got a deal for you!  Starting now I'll be posting whatever obscure word threatens my colloquial speech with regular usage on any given day.  With definitions, quotations, citations and all the other requisite lexicological dressings. 

The A. Cephalous Word of the Every Other Day or So for Thursday, June 30, 2005 comes from heraldry:

appaumy, adj.

(əpaʊmI)

(of a hand) with the palm toward the viewer.

1991 Suburban White Girl 15 Minutes After Watching In Living Color (to A. Cephalous), On The Telephone "If she pulls that shit with me again, that's it, she'll wish the worst thing I did to her with my hands is flash dexter appaumy."  1992 Suburban White Girl (to A. Cephalous), P.E. Class "Oh no, you did na, you DID NA! Beseech the sinister hand appaumy bitch!" 1998 Suburban White Girl, Early Wedded, Early Bedded, Divorce Proceedings "Your Honor, then I told him to supplicate before my hand appaumy if he wanted to save this marriage, and he said 'Whatever Janine!  What.  Ever.  I've been fucking your sister for five years.'" 2005 Suburban White Girl, Divorced (to A. Cephalous' best friend), Tenth High School Reunion "A. Cephalous couldn't even bother to show up for his own high school reunion.  What a fucktard.  Next time I see him it'll be all hands appaumy, dexter, sinister, and all that shit."