(no subject)

[mistymassey]

Saturday night, we were tucked in my living room happily rolling dice and hoping the battle would go our way. I was engaged in a sword battle, and my dice had been hot. Really hot. Smoking, even. So when a natural 20 came around, as they occasionally do, I was elated. The DM had me roll percentiles, and announced that I'd cut off my opponent's arm. Which started a conversation about what word actually means "to cut off an arm." After all, we have 'decapitate' for heads. Surely there had to be words for all the other parts. I declared, in my writerly way, that I believed 'debrachiate' was the correct word. Unfortunately, brachiate means "To move by swinging with the arms from one hold to another". And adding 'de' to the front does not make it a legitimate word.

But I'm a writer, damn it! I will not be stopped by mere dictionaries! After a little further discussion, we decided 'debrachiate' must mean "falling out of the trees because someone cut your arms off".

*grin*

Comments

[beatrizwench.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahahaahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

[jennawaterford.livejournal.com]

We even have a word for throwing things out of windows*, and I'm sure dismemberment is more common.

Oh, that's the word right there if not quite specific enough to suit.

NEVERMIND!

*I thought defenestrate had to do with removing ALL the shrubberys from a piece of land when I first heard it.

[tempest-gypsy.livejournal.com]

:D I love language. And where do you think new words come from, Lady? People make them up and they stick. Keep using 'debrachiate' and it will come back to you!
Incedentally, 'callipygian' is my favorite, "There's a real word for that!" word, this year.

[madkestrel.livejournal.com]

Okay, I had to look that one up. What an awesome word!!! It might even be suitable for use in the steampunkish New Shiny I'm working on. Thank you!

Any chance I'll see you at DragonCon?

[tempest-gypsy.livejournal.com]

You're quite welcome. I love to share my favorite vocabulary words!
The chance is better than it has been, before. I suffer under the Dragon*Con Curse. For 15 years I've been making plans and trying to attend, and for 15 years, something has come up, a tech week, going out of town for other purposes, utter and complete broke-ness, and I have not made it. However, the new roommate is a big con-goer, and is convinced he's going to be able to break the curse for me. So, I have hopes!