You see these things around you all the time. Some of them, you even use. The least you could do is know their names!
1. Aglet
The piece of plastic covering the ends of your shoelace, so you don’t have to moisten them with spit to thread them through your shoelace holes.
2. Bollard
The posts in the parking lot let that lets wheelchairs and shopping carts go through, but not your car.
3. Dingbat
Non-alphanumeric, non-punctuation characters, usually used when you want to write something that you don’t want your children to read.
4. Ferrule
The metal band that connects the pencil eraser to the end of the pencil.
5. Keeper
The leather loop in your belt or watch strap that keeps the end in place after it has been fastened through the buckle.
6. Kerf
The groove made by a sawblade, ie, the width of a cut. In the image above we see a 2.5 micron kerf.
7. Punt, or Kick
The small indentation at the bottom or a wine bottle, designed to give the bottle extra strength, and also, to make it look like it has more wine than it really does
8. Philtrum
The vertical groove between your lip and nose that separates your left and right mustache, unless you’re Hitler, then it’s the part that your mustache covers.
9. Phosphenes
The points of light that you see behind your eyelids when you shut your eyes really hard.
10. Tragus
The little piece of cartilage that sticks out at the front side of your ear
Contributor: Beatrice Adams
I finally know what those damn little lights are called!
Celebration is in order.
cool list!
I suddenly feel so enlightened.
I feel enlightened too. But, my Tragus hurts.
And I am seeing phosphenes trying to remember the names
I heard a bunch of these on NPR the other day, but they called the kick of a wine bottle the “punt” instead. American football terms have invaded the wine-making industry!
A Ferrule? I never even thought those little metal things had a name…
haha, what a great list. i bet this one could be endless.
dalandzadgad: It certainly could!
There’s a name for that metal thing on the end of a pencil? Does anybody else find this weird? haha
Aww hell honey, I done went and broke my keeper! Hand me another Schlitz.
in the last century *grins* i temp’ed at Texas Instruments as a parts expeditor. so you’d be amazed at what things are called. they all gotta have name or else how can you re-order one? *grin*
There needs to be an entire website devoted to these!!
“unless you’re Hitler, then it’s the part that your mustache covers.”
That got an audible laugh out of me, mostly becuase it was so unexpected.
Surprisingly, I knew a lot of these…Is that weird?
Meee tooo!
I always thought the the indent in wine bottles was called a “punt”. Maybe something else.
“Barse”
- The small hairy area between your balls and your arse.
I thought that was the Taint. It ain’t balls, and it ain’t the other.
Pereneum?
Dunfire:
You’re right – it is a “punt.” It’s also a “kick.” They’re synonyms, I guess, as far as wine bottles are concerned
(But not in football.)
i had a science teacher in elementary school that used to tell us this that his grandfather used to call #8. Philtrum a snot troff, so ur boogers could run down the snot troff on a cold day right to your mouth. roflmfao.
and to #16 fgds, it’s called a cuzif.. cuz if you didn’t have that part there, your guts would fall out lmfao ;o).
cuzif! I’ve never heard of that before.
Speaking of hearing, the Tragus (#10) is used to reflect & focus sounds into your ear c*****. The big flap part of your ear is called the Pinna. All those bumps and grooves on the Pinna are not aesthetic, they actually modify the frequencies of the sound slightly as it enters your ear. Your brain then uses this to help calculate which direction the sound is coming from.
Now. Isn’t that interesting?
fgds: It is very interesting – and also leads me to wonder how much the sounds we hear are distorted by this. I wonder if we can hear pure sound that is not modified at all by environmental factors.
Or you can get an illustrated dictionary to find the whatchamacallits.
Meh. I knew every single one except #5 (the belt thingie).
Punt – not Kick, is what the indent on the bottle of wine is called… At least that’s what I was always told(?)
I’ve heard that the “kick” or “punt” of a bottle depends of the kind of wine. Experts say that some really good wines need to be served exactly at some temperature, so that “kick” is used to put the thumb there and hold the bottle just with the fingertips, so you don’t warm it and it doesn’t lose its qualities.
). This “evolution” is so recent that some people are still born with what they call “hare snout”, that is to say, the philtrum is still sticked to the nose (It can be solved with surgery)
About the philtrum, it’s a reminiscence of a “snout” (try pulling your upper lip together with the nose, you will see they “fit”
Your def. of “kerf” is mildly inaccurate, or at least incomplete. A kerf is the groove made by a saw blade…in other words, the entire cut. It’s the space formerly occupied by your sawdust, not just the starter notch.
Based on the very wise comments here, I have made a few minor corrections. Thanks.
The punt helps sequester the dregs.
Two more words for the barse/cuzif are taint and gooch.
I thought it would be a new list. This came out years ago in the Reader’s Digest. Nice effort though. Thanks!
So the Kerf is the dimention, not the cut itself. The kerf of the blade determines the width of the cut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw#Saw_terminology
I’ve always thought of the kerf as the cut, where the blade was, not the dimension.
Dictionary.com
a cut or incision made by a saw or the like in a piece of wood.
Merrian Webster says:
: a slit or notch made by a saw or cutting torch 2 : the width of cut made by a saw or cutting torch
So according to MW, I guess both are correct.
oh yeh?!?!.. gee.. I always wondered what “The groove made by a sawblade” was called.
Is there another word for “Phosphenes” when you rub your fists even harder into your eyes and create a faux phychedelic experience? Perhaps “Phosphenesicphychidellica”?
K VIlla:
Hi. I’ve seen that Reader’s Digest issue you’re talking about, and yes, the idea came from that. It was a much longer list, though, and ferrule, keeper, phosphenes and tragus did not come from that list. Also, the pictures and definitions are different.
I know you mean no harm, but as a writer, I am very careful about such things.
Best regards,
Beatrice
a bunghole is actually the hole that the tap goes into on a keg. I always just thought it was a funny word said on beavis and butthead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunghole
Anyone remember Rich Hall’s sniglets from HBO’s “Not Necessarily The News”? The one that always stuck in my mind was “spud rubble”…the small crumbs left in the bottom of a bag of potato chips. lol
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniglet
Actually I remember these were defined in the very first “Book of Lists” back in the late 70′s.
“The Book of Lists”, and “Sniglets” are probably the two best reference volumes a “wordaphile” could have. Other great terms are: “hemidemisemiquaver” (a 1/64th note in music), and “frenum” (find that one on your own)
loop: Having studied music for a time, I find hemidemisemiquaver completely normal!
perineum – The small hairy area between your balls and your arse.
Knowledge legitimately acquired through pre-medical school studies. Honest.
barse, cuzif, taint, gooch, perineum… Any more??? I’m still chuckling at Barse. Oh yea!!! Choad, I forgot all about that one, had a friend back in high school who used to get called that.
reminded me of sniglets… although those aren’t technically legitimate words… like they’re not in a dictionary or anything (except the sniglets dictionary). still, they give names to things that don’t have names.
some of my favorites (that i can remember):
cheedle: the residue left on one’s fingertips after consuming a bag of cheetos
fods: a pair of tourists wearing matching (usually horrendous) outfits
furnidents: the depressions made in carpeting by furniture: feet of tables, etc.
cinemuck: the sticky stuff that causes your feet to stick to the floor of movie theaters
cinepeds: feet that magically appear over your shoulder while you’re watching a movie in a theater
cineplegic: someone whose feet have fallen asleep as a result of being wedged between the seats for too long (or in my case, because of sitting cross-legged during the entire movie because your legs are cold).
subatomic toasticles: minute bits of toast left behind in the butter
and my all-time favorite:
bovilexia: the uncontrollable NEED when driving past cows to stick your head out the window and yell “MOOOOOO!”
i could go on but this post is getting way too long. i’m sure there’s a sniglets website out there somewhere… too lazy to look for it.
This is a great list! May be one of my favorites..but it’s hard to choose compared to all the other great ones you have already made.
A ferrule is a generic name for a tube-like, usually metal, thingy that goes over things. I think there’s a part of a pool cue that’s called a ferrule. Camping tents that use fiberglas poles that come in sections have ferrules to hold the poles together.
I had always figured that “aglets” would be called ferrules, but I was wrong.
My genetics professor in college used to throw these names out during lectures, and then put them on exams for extra credit.
I learned the name of various body parts through the body modification scene, since most piercings are named after the body part they pierce: tragus, philtrum, conch, frenum, etc.
“barse, cuzif, taint, gooch, perineum… Any more???”
How about “TWERNT”? cos if i”twernt” there your guts etc etc….
Just out of interest. When cutting metal, the kerf may be the groove, but the tiny pieces of metal sticking out that need to be sanded down afterwards is called the burr
You know those things often referred to as “coffee cozies” that keep your hands from burning while drinking a cup on the go?
They are really called… ready for this? Zarfs.
Quick discussion – “chod” or “choad”? To me, “chod” is far more accurate as it’s a short, stubby word. “Choad” sounds long and thin.
I was never quite sure how to spell it. Choad, Chode, Chod (sounds like cod). Either way, aren’t there Too many names for something That odd/perverse???
I knew aglets (and eyelets are the holes that you lace your shoe through.
And also philtrum/tragus. Those are well known to anyone in the body modification community because they are often pierced, the philtrum when pierced is often called a medusa. aside from the tragus the other folds of the ear are rook, daith, conch, and anti- before any of them.
haha
I only know what the tragus is because I just recently pierced it.
I recall Rubber Baby Bumpers and Muffler bearings..Knernufer blades and other items that Car Mechinics use to get more money from the customers. Rotating the Winter Air in your tires and putting Spring air in. TRUST ME this really happen to me back in 76 when I was working a FUll Serve Shell station. Guy came in and wanted the Winter Air out of his tires and fresh Srping air in. Charged him $5 a tire and had a nice pizza off it. Oh for the good old days.
HA! I tried to get my sister on the whole winter air thing too… she’s smarter than she looks. Rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers… it’s about as hard to say as it is hard to find a left handed screwdriver.
Rich Hall, formerly of SNL and Not Necessarily the News, invented Sniglets. My favorite was “Esso Asso”–someone who cuts through a gas station (or other business on a street corner)rather than wait for the light to change.
Someone talked about an aglet on a kids show I was watching sometime,and I thought they were kidding.shows how much i know!
was it Phineas and Ferb?
The “punt” of a bottle is NOT used to make it stronger.
This is the problem with the internet. Someone makes a list, does NO research, and now it is FACT. You should check your facts first.
I saw mention of Rich Hall’s snigglets? My mom still uses the term “Eastroturf” to this day (it’s the shredded plastic easter grass people use in easter baskets).. I used to think that was actually what it was called..
is it just me or does anyone else not see the phosphenes?
i see them
I have always been curious what that little dividing line is that separates my left and right nuts…..it MUST have a name…..?