331 Comments
User's avatar
тна Return to thread
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Spot on. I'm gonna like me any post that uses both miscegenation and defenestration.

Never forget 1A is just as important for the listener.

For every person they silence a thousand can not hear.

Draw a picture of that and it's worth a thousand words.

That's what they're after.

Expand full comment
Stephenie's avatar

Me eldest is OBSESSED with defenestration. She shouts it out every time it comes up. And when you start looking for it, it comes up A LOT.

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

It's the only word in the English language without an antonym.

Here's another tidbit of language trivia:

What is the longest word in the English language with only one vowel?

Hint it's something we're all going to need in these times.

Expand full comment
el gato malo's avatar

seems like there are lots of words without antonyms.

what, for example, is the antonym of "carrot" or "nematode."

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

What I want to know is how did nematode emerge in your brain as an example?!...lol...of all things

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Dang it I meant synonym

Expand full comment
Pi Guy's avatar

Meh. Same thing.

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

If they keep censoring long enough the meanings will be inverse...or worse no antonym or synonym.

To eliminate nuance gives the ruler the power of the word to make the rules on what can and can not be said; imprecision is precisely how the totalitarian uses words to name the enemy

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Well I guess unique too

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Take out the animal kingdom and food.

No fun!

Expand full comment
Stephenie's avatar

but also, why can't refenestration be a thing?

Expand full comment
Pi Guy's avatar

After reading Ryan's "no opposite of defenestration" I've been scouring the intertubes for 20 minutes (I mean, what's government funding for, after all) for videos of, as you've nicely named it, refenestration.

It does not appear to be a thing.

Expand full comment
AndyinBC's avatar

So why not "make it so"?

If the left can deliberately, with malice aforethought, redefine half of the bloody dictionary, why can't the (relatively) sane do the same?

Expand full comment
Pi Guy's avatar

I shall make it so.

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

I don't know. Maybe because if you throw something out a window you can't repair the glass by throwing them back through?

But if it were an odious bureaucrat I'd try to defy reality

Expand full comment
AndyinBC's avatar

Is "odious bureaucrat" not a bit redundant?

And once the odious creature has successfully been defenestrated, why on earth would one ever want to toss it back? Even to fix the window?

Asking for a friend.

Expand full comment
Stephenie's avatar

The windows don't always have glass! European castles just had open spaces for a long time. I'm envisioning throwing the body back where it came from. Not that that would happen. But your claim was provocative.

Expand full comment
el gato malo's avatar

defenestration is a word because people used to throw a lot of stuff (including slop and excrement) out of windows. little was thrown in, so we did not develop a word.

there are lost of words that have a negative but no positive.

gormless.

i've never seen gorm or gormful as a positive.

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Alright I'm going to shut up now

..;(

Expand full comment
INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

only on film I guess, when you turn it backwards

Expand full comment
Stephenie's avatar

ha ha ha

Expand full comment
NormaJeanne's avatar

This whole thread made me feel so much better. I was actually nauseous last night after reading the SCOTUS bull crap. I honestly had a hard time sleeping. Thanks you all! тЭдя╕П

Expand full comment
kertch's avatar

how about antidefenestration?

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

That's anti-physics Kertch!

Expand full comment
kertch's avatar

It can either mean that you are against defenestration, or you are throwing the object back up through the window. In the case of a person thrown up to a window at a significant height during the Renaissance, it would require a catapult of sorts.

Expand full comment
kertch's avatar

strengths - one vowel.

Expand full comment
kertch's avatar

Do I win a prize?

I'll take door number three Monty.

You've won a jar of Turtle Wax.

But I don't own a car.

Expand full comment
Stephenie's avatar

I'm terrible at these but I am also very curious...

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

STRENGTH

Expand full comment
el gato malo's avatar

here's a hard one:

what's the longest english word that is all vowels?

6 letters.

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Euouae. It also has the most consecutive vowels

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

I'm not getting into this battle...you'll smoke me

Expand full comment
Notyours's avatar

Pluralize it!

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Dang it I forgot the S

Expand full comment
libertate's avatar

"The Second Amendment is just in case the first one doesn't work out."

~ Dave Chappelle

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Well it might be time to "break glass"....;)

Expand full comment
libertate's avatar

Four years past time, says I.

Expand full comment
Blair's avatar

Well said, Ryan.

Expand full comment
Moonspinner's avatar

Yep. "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." Frederick Douglass

Expand full comment