Defining Sleep: Aa
In a previous post, I mentioned working on an ASMR sleeping podcast called Sleep Defined. I thought I would include a bit of it here to see if it floats any boats.
1. aardwolf
noun A fox-sized, striped, hyena-like mammal, found in southern and eastern Africa.
The only member of the Protelidae family, the Proteles cristatus is a nocturnal insectivore mammal who loves to eat termites.
The name aardwolf comes from the Afrikaans/Dutch and translates to "earth-wolf," however they are also known as "maanhaar-jackel" —meaning "jackel with a hairy mane"— as well as the “civet hyena”. This last name is because the aardwolf, like the African civet, enjoys secreting a musky yellowish-orange fluid from its anal glands to attract a mate. This secretion turns black when introduced to oxygen. Mmmmm, tasty.
"We were going to start spraying for termites, but we didn't like the idea of using chemicals. So we called the company Natural Solutions and are renting their aardwolf instead."
2. abaft
adverb
as a direction: backwards
as a position: behind the rear
preposition
In the back of
A nautical term with Old English roots. "A" meaning "on" and aeftan meaning "behind", where we also get the word "after". The back part of a ship is its "aft," thus "abaft."
Much to my shock, Melville only uses the word “abaft” twice in Moby Dick. Thankfully, it was used once in his chapter entitled, “The Town-Ho’s Story.”
Patrick O’Brien, author of the Aubrey-Maturin series uses it over 100 times (I stopped counting when using the Aubrey-Maturin Text Search Engine), which seems overkill, if you ask me. On the other side, it is used nary a-once in the O’Brien-based movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Seems like mistake to me. But I guess that is an argument to put on the abaft burner for later.
"This evening's cruise lecturer is the immanent scholar Dr. Michael Draves, who will be discussing the history of twerking in our Queen of the Seas lecture hall abaft."
Ackamarackus
slang
A story or tale that attempts to convince the listener through deception and obfuscation.
Apparently first used in 1934 by American journalist and fiction author Daymon Runyon in a short story called "The Lemon Drop Kid." After its publication other authors picked up the word and worked it into their own writing. Most recently used, "Ackamarackus" is the title of a children's book published by Scholastic Press in 2001 and written by Julius Lester with illustrations by Emily Chollat. "Ackamarackus" is also the title of song on The Homegrown String Band's album entitled Rock Hollow.
I suggest its use as role-playing wizard or warlock of the dark arts.
"Whenever a politician opens their mouth out comes the old ackamarackus."
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