Wondrous Words Wednesday 38

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Kathy at the Bermuda Onion where you "can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. Feel free to get creative!"

Last week was cod, but now we have officially reached ridiculously cold. Sorry it is so blurry, but that is what our weather station reported this morning minus thirteen! Eek!

I randomly started re-reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I haven't read the books in ages so it was neat to revisit it. I have to read the rest of them again now. Classic the glass is half empty, the toast always lands butter side down humor.

Source: Grace's Guide

"It's the Vogon captain making an announcement on the tannoy."

Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Tannoy Limited is a Scotland-based manufacturer of loudspeakers and public-address (PA) systems that was founded in 1926. The name Tannoy is an abbreviation of tantalum alloy, which was used in a type of electrolytic rectifier developed by the company (something that coverts AC to DC). Tannoy became a household word as a result of supplying PA systems to the armed forces during World War II. They are still around and you can still purchase Tannoy speakers and loud speakers.

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"He gave us conkers when you bust your way into his megafreighter."

conker

1:  a horse chestnut especially when used in the game conkers

2 plural:  a game in which each player swings a horse chestnut on a string to try to break one held by the opponent

 Origin: mid 19th century (a dialect word denoting a snail shell, with which the game, or a similar form of it, was originally played): perhaps from conch, but associated with (and frequently spelled) conquer in the 19th and early 20th centuries: an alternative name was conquerors.

So - to judge by the context in the rest of the section, we are talking about chestnuts.

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"Here," he said, hoicking out a lump of evil-smelling meat from a bowl, "have some Vegan Rhino's cutlet."

hoick \ˈhȯik\
verb 

: to lift or pull (something) with a quick movement 

Origin: probably alteration of hike

First Known Use: 1898

(sounds awful - I read that hocked up at first - blergh!) 

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"Since when," continued his murine colleague, "we have had an offer of a quite enormously fat contract ..."

murine \ˈmyu̇r-ˌīn\ 

adjective 

: of or relating to a murid genus (Mus) or its subfamily (Murinae) which includes the common household rats and mice;  also 

:  of, relating to, or involving these rodents and especially the house mouse

Origin: ultimately from Latin mur-, mus

First Known Use: circa 1729

Specifically, Old World rats and mice, part of the subfamily Murinae in the family Muridae. Members of this subfamily are called murines. The Murinae are native to Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

  

Happy Wednesday!