Wondering about wild grapes

Friday, August 20, 2010

Words

Good morning. My four alarm clocks (my dogs) allowed me a few extra minutes of sleep this morning. Wonder why, they are never later waking me than 06:30. Oh well, one should not look a gift horse in the mouth.

For a few days, I just had my computer system here plugged into the wall outlet, with a small surge protector. I have an UPS (uninterrupted power supply) that I traded a large pen / pencil plotter for. It is humongous and noisy. You have heard the old saying that it takes two men and a boy to pick up, well with this UPS unit, that is very correct and the three of them would be straining. It takes a lot of fan power to cool all those batteries, thus the noise part. The inverter / charger may have something to do with it also. The quiet was appreciated but with all the threats of afternoon thunder storms, I plugged it back in.

Anyway, to get to the point, I am running Windows XP Pro as an operating system. It seems to run Inventor and AutoCAD much better than the other ones, but it is slow loading. I don’t like to sit and do nothing while I am waiting, so I picked up a big dictionary, closed my eyes, opened it and pointed my finger. I figured maybe whatever word it landed on, could be the inspiration and topic of my blog today. Didn’t quite work out like I wanted. This is unbelievable, out of all the words in that book, I had to land on one that I had never heard of. Can you imagine that?

The word was “monochasium”. Have you ever heard that word? Well I have not, kind of makes me feel stupid, not knowing the first word I picked in the dictionary. Then I read the meaning and felt more stupid than before. The meaning (other than the Greek) was, “a cymose or determinate inflorescence having only a single main axis”, HEY, I know what axis is!!! But, what is inflorescence, maybe something that shines? Boy, I am feeling dumber and dumber as this goes on.

OK, I dare you to look up cymose. . . Yep, I did, and it means: “1. of or like a cyme; determinate. 2. bearing a cyme or cymes.” Kind of puts you back where you started, doesn’t it. Kind of like a closed loop. OK, I looked up cyme and it cleared it up. But what about inflorescence?

Now why should I take all your fun away, you look them up.

7 comments:

  1. Dang , you picked a good one to look up. IF I read it right, I think it can be broken down simply a flower arrangement ( or arrangement of anything) that uses the articles in a certain circular style. Phoopey!! I need a LOT more coffee,, My Brain hurts!!!

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  2. Hey DD, it's too early in the day to be throwing things like this around!

    You must be just trying to give us a bit of mental exercise today! I never heard of this one either!

    Thanks...I think!

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  3. Hey Ben, It was the truth when I said I closed my eyes, opened the dictionary, and pointed. When my eyes opened, it was a word I didn't know. Of course I don't know a lot words. Thanks for checking in.

    Hey Hermit, Glad I am not the only one that didn't know what it meant. Probably would have known if I were a botanist. Thanks for stopping by.

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  4. Well DD we know what inflorescence is now... c'mon give us a hard one... enjoying your posts... keep them coming...

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  5. Thanks FT, sometimes a guy needs a little encouragement, and it came at the right time.

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  6. "means: “1. of or like a cyme; determinate"......... I figured that it was a typo and should have been spelled "crime"... def: having to do with Oboma and Washington politicians. 2. Related to ALL POLITICIANS... usage: It's a crime that we keep electing criminal politicians! (grin)

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  7. Hey JT, thanks for stopping by. Yep, I know what you mean.

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