Smoocheroso

I've found my word of the day: smoocheroso.

It was used to describe a couple of performances on the now defunct Radio National program The Planet.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/dailyplanet/jenny-game-lopata--bennie-wallace/3408848

If you like smoocheroso, sensuous tenor saxophone, it's hard to imagine anything more appetizing than "The Nearness of You".

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/weekendplanet/richard-galliano-and-maria-kalaniemi/3306210

RICHARD GALLIANO (NEW YORK TRIO) - ’RUBY, MY DEAR’ (one of the world’s greatest accordionists, ’live’, & smoocheroso with ac bassist Larry Grenadier & the brushes of drummer Clarence Penn.

So it has been used to describe tenor saxophone and accordion performances. It sounds like a medley of smooth and smooch, with the Spanish suffix to turn it into an adjective. There are few occurrences of the word on the Internet and no definition, but you can infer what it implies.

Shaggy number story

A science reporter was interviewing a famous pure mathematician at home. After the interview, his attention was drawn to the various beautiful paintings on the wall depicting well-known mathematical numbers, such as √2, 1729, Fibonacci series, and even transcendentals such as π and e.

Ah yes, they are presents from my artist friends. Aren't they lovely? she asked.

The reporter noticed one painting on the ground depicting 0. Why isn't that one on the wall?

Why, that's the unhung zero, replied the mathematician.

Huperchild and woperchild

The urban dictionary gives a citation from 2019 of huperchild. Woperchild is cited from 2005.

I wish it to be known that huperchild was invented by Lambert Meertens back in 1986 at the CWI. Unfortunately we did not think to publish this on the incipient Internet (still lots of Usenet, UUCP and a few ARPANET nodes) and stake the claim.

Lambert was musing about the politically correct way of saying human. So we have the progression:

human →huperson → huperchild

Similarly for woperchild:

woman →woperson → woperchild

Pavimental?

Today I passed a council artist creating pre-distorted paintings on the ground that when viewed from the correct spot displays the correct proportions. Very clever.

These were for the Snow Festival at Greenwood Plaza, North Sydney.

I wondered if they could be called murals in light of the derivation of that word. Indeed ground mural is the common term. A painting on any flat surface is regarded as a mural now. Pavimental has zero chance of becoming accepted, too late for that.

Enticing with food

Today an amusing incident popped into my mind.

Several years ago I was working as a programmer in a university lab. One day around lunchtime one of the Chinese masters students popped into the lab and handed me a jam sandwich on a paper plate. I accepted it with thanks, ate it and thought no more about it.

In retrospect I realised that she did exactly what one does when trying to entice an animal to be friendly, offer some food. 😃 Oh dear, maybe I should have made some conversation. I can be a bit dim. I hope she wasn't disappointed.

It illustrates though the importance of food in Chinese culture. While these days how are you is rendered as nǐ hǎo, between familiars (possibly above a certain age) a common phrase is chī le fàn ma meaning have you eaten (a meal). There is more concern for the listener's well-being compared to nǐ hǎo. For example a singer coming on stage would not ask the crowd if they had eaten.

Here's an explanation of the phrase. The writer talks about northern China, but the phrase is also used in the southern parts, e.g. Guangdong.

An idea for quirky travel

According to my saved email copy, I first thought of this 13 June 2013. The idea is to visit every place that is associated with a chess opening.

As I observed then: Might not be as hard as it seems, for example visiting anywhere in Spain ticks the Ruy Lopez box. A trip to Eastern Europe and Russia would tick a lot of boxes.

Unfortunate position for the f

I think the shop didn't foresee this when they wanted people to like them on Facebook.