Knock it off, Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov was born on this day in 1899. He died in 1977.

Nabokov's stories were rife with wordplay -- anagrams, puns, allusions, portmanteau words (see Lewis Carroll), coined words, etc.

In Lolita, Nabokov coins the word nymphet to describe the object of Humbert Humbert's lustful love. A character in that novel is named Vivian Darkbloom, an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov. And Humbert recounts a youthful fling of his on the seashore, with a girl named Annabelle Leigh. (See Poe's Annabel Lee.)

Collectively speaking (2)

If you can have a gaggle of geese, how about a giggle of children? Or a gurgle of fish?

If there's a clowder of cats, there ought to be a clowder of minds.

There is a peal of bells, why not a peel of strippers?

Would a group of objectionable volumes in a library be called a band of books?

Is there a collective noun for collectors?

The Twain holds

Mark Twain died on this day in 1910.

Twain made writing look easy, but here is what he said in regard to the craft of writing:

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

Today's ghost word:

Twainkling, adj.: Characteristic of a word that gives off its own light.

The Twain holds

Mark Twain died on this day in 1910.

Twain made writing look easy, but here is what he said in regard to the craft of writing:

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

Today's ghost word:

Twainkling, adj.: Characteristic of a word that gives off its own light.

Gored by bull

Ghost word:

Algorism, n.: A statement, easily disproved, claiming credit for something.

Today is Al Gore's 62nd birthday. At one time or another, to some degree or another, the Nobel Prize-winner has said that he was instrumental in the creation of the Internet, and in coining the terms "nanotechnology" and "the Information Superhighway."

Wait around long enough, and Gore will claim he discovered global warming.

Anagram of the day:

Albert Arnold Gore = blander rot galore

This is also the 62nd birthday, by the way, of Rhea Perlman, who played Carla on Cheers. She coined a word of her own: Birdzilla, the oversized turkey that Norm stuck in her oven on Thanksgiving Day.

Hashing it over

On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln died from wounds he received at the hands of assassin John Wilkes Booth.

Assassin, word origin:

During the time of the Crusades the members of a certain secret Muslim sect engaged people to terrorize their Christian enemies by performing murders as a religious duty. These acts were carried out under the influence of hashish, and so the killers became known as hashshashin, meaning eaters or smokers of hashish.

Hashshashin evolved into the word assassin.

Booth was not a drug user, or a drunk like his father. But on his way to Ford's theater he was accosted by a drunk man who told him: "You'll never be half the actor your father was."

Booth supposedly replied: "There will be some fine acting tonight....when I leave the stage, I will be the most famous man in History."

Rose is not a rose

Pete Rose is 71 years old today.

Pun:

Rose-tainted classes -- all those who naively believed that Charlie Hustle never bet on baseball.

Bless this lessness

Samuel Beckett was born on this day in 1906. The Irish playwright (Waiting for Godot) wrote a short work of prose fiction called Sans, which he later translated into an English version called Lessness, a word he apparently coined.

Beckett said that the 24 sentences of both stories were put in a container, drawn out and strung together in that random order.

We all remember Les Nessman, the flighty news director on WKRP in Cincinnati. Perhaps the show’s creators had Beckett in mind when they invented the name. Maybe not. Regardless, our ghost word for the day is:

Lessnessman, improper noun (accent on first syllable). One who is more random or nondescript than another.

Sydow-analysis

This is the 84th birthday of Max von Sydow, the Swedish actor who was a stalwart in Ingmar Bergman movies. He played the knight who had the chess game with Death in The Seventh Seal.

Von Sydow's character was usually anguished and brooding. His long face and serious mien were effective in casting a pall over the proceedings.

Today's ghost words: sydow, n. A gaunt, angular shadow.

A coincidence worth noting: Von Sydow played in the movie Truth and Treason opposite Haley Joel Osment, who has the same birthday (he is 23 today).

Don't be born again

According to records, the philosopher Buddha was born right around this time in 563 B. C.

Buddha taught, roughly speaking, that all life is suffering and that we must strive for release from the endless recurrence of suffering life through a renunciation -- an annihilation -- of self.

The flaw, or paradox, of this philosophy has always seemed to me that we must first be able to develop a self, capable enough of enlightened self-awareness, in order to renounce it.

In any event, Buddha and his adherents called this self-lessness, or egolessness, anatta. Ever since Buddha's time, of course, and before it, societies have conspired to facilitate the process of eroding and destroying the individual self.

Which leads me to today's ghost word: anattamization.

Anattamization is the systematic eradication of the self, carried out by the state in collaboration with the culture.

I state unequivocally

Wondering how many four-letter words can be made by combining as many two-letter postal abbreviations of states as possible.  Example:

PA (Pennsylvania) + CT (Connecticut) = PACT.

I came up with 20.  I believe that is the maximum possible.

FLAK, ORCA, COOK, GAME, HIND, WAIL, WINY, DEWY, MAID, MINE, ARID, MOMS, ARKS, VAIN, VIVE, LAKY, OHIA, SCUT.

Get out your Hankies, and weep

On this day in 1975, Henry ("Hank") Aaron hit his 715th career home run, overtaking Babe Ruth as the all-time leader.

Since then, Barry Bonds, the Sullen of Swat, has supplanted Aaron at the top, though not, apparently, in the hearts and minds of baseball fans.

Today's ghost word: Hankaaroning, n. (From hankering) A yearning for a more innocent era, real or imagined, in sports.

Wellcome in

Sign on a convenience-store billboard: "You're freindly neighborhood market."

Maybe the self-marketers wish to cast a "spell" on passers-by.

Today's coined work: spellunkhead, n.: One who flaunts his poor spelling skills, rather than properly concealing them in a cave.