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Pedants' corner

I have lost two words

267 replies

MaMight · 15/12/2009 09:18

This is not actually pendantry, but I thought I would have most luck if I put it to the Pedants' Corner squatters.

Two separate questions:

  1. This morning I called my daughter a "daft bessom" and then realised that I have only ever read the word 'bessom' and don't know it's literal meaning. Not wanting to unwittingly use an offensive word, I looked it up... and can't find it anywhere. There is a word bessom isn't there? What does it mean?
  1. Years ago I had a 'Word of the Day' calendar. It gave me a word that means a collections of jams, marmalades, honeys etc. It was the breakfast equivalent of 'condiments' I loved this word and used it as often as I could poncily shoe-horn it into conversation. Now I have forgotten it completely. Anyone know?

PS apologies for any spelling or grammar mistakes. I'm not really literate enough to post here, I know .

OP posts:
NorbertDentressAngel · 15/12/2009 09:58

Conserves?

Thats what my Scottish Granny used to call them

MaMight · 15/12/2009 10:02

Not comestibles, collation or conserves.

I am determined to find it now.

I think that you could use it specifically to mean jams, marmalades, butter and honey. It's the butter and honey bit that rules out a lot of collective breakfasty words.

OP posts:
noddyholder · 15/12/2009 10:14

hokum

MaMight · 15/12/2009 10:16

Was that a suggestion or a comment Noddy?

OP posts:
SantaIsMyLoveSlave · 15/12/2009 10:16

In the meantime, may I offer up as a related diversion the words jentacular, meaning "pertaining to breakfast" (hence antejentacular means "before breakfast"), and lexiphanicism, meaning "the pretentious use of obscure words".

IMoveTheStarsForNoOne · 15/12/2009 10:17
Grin
MaMight · 15/12/2009 10:18

lolol

OP posts:
IMoveTheStarsForNoOne · 15/12/2009 10:18

i need my reverse dictionary...

noddyholder · 15/12/2009 10:21

It was a suggestion and a comment

squeaver · 15/12/2009 10:24

No there is a word, I've seen it and used it.

Bugger, this is going to annoy me.

A BISUM/BISOM is a Scottish word for a naughty child, specifically a girl

TisTheSeasonToBeHully · 15/12/2009 10:27

Concupiscence?
Colloquy?
Confabulation?

fanjolina · 15/12/2009 10:30

re 'besom' - it does say in the link above that it is also a derogatory term for a woman, so not sure how nice it is to use re your daughter?

VintageGardenia · 15/12/2009 10:31

Ooh this is interesting. I have no idea what this word is. The breakfast spreadable things collection one, I mean. But I am v interested to discover it.

Hands up who has ever used the word "condiments" though, me never.

saintnickelas · 15/12/2009 10:37

156 Moby Thesaurus words for "sauce": Colbert, French dressing, Italian dressing, Lorenzo dressing, Ritz sauce, Russian dressing, Smitane, Soubise, alcohol, all sorts, allemande, answer back, aqua vitae, assemblage, assortment, audacity, back talk, backchat, booze, bourguignonne, brass, brazenness, broad spectrum, brown sauce, budge, butter, cataplasm, cheek, cheekiness, condiment, conglomeration, corpse reviver, cream sauce, crush, crust, dash, dental pulp, disrespect, disrespectfulness, drink, duck sauce, egg sauce, espagnole, firewater, flavor, gall, gallimaufry, gravy, green sauce, grog, hash, hint, hodgepodge, hooch, hotchpot, hotchpotch, impertinence, impudence, infusion, inkling, insolence, intimation, jaw, juice, jumble, likker, lip, magpie, marinara, mash, mayonnaise, medicine, medley, melange, mess, mingle-mangle, miscellany, mishmash, mix, mixed bag, mole, mouth, mush, nerve, odds and ends, olio, olla podrida, omnium-gatherum, paper pulp, paprika sauce, paste, pasticcio, pastiche, patchwork, pepper, pepper sauce, pertness, pith, plaster, porridge, potpourri, poulette, poultice, provoke, pudding, pulp, pulp lead, pulpwood, rag pulp, ravigote sauce, remoulade sauce, roux, salad, salad dressing, salmagundi, salt, sass, sassiness, sauciness, savor, scramble, season, seasoning, shade, shallot sauce, smack, smash, snake medicine, soupcon, spice, sponge, sprinkling, squash, stew, suggestion, sulfate pulp, sulfite pulp, suspicion, sweet-and-sour sauce, taint, talk back, tartar sauce, tempering, thought, tiger milk, tinct, tincture, tinge, tint, touch, trace, vestige, vinaigrette, what you will, white lead, wood pulp

Source: Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

any of those?
(it's from sauce

VintageGardenia · 15/12/2009 10:39

There is a French word tartinable which means spreadable and is also used as a noun. Do you think it might be related to that? I have never heard of "tartinables" in English and it's not in my New Shorter Oxford but I think I could manage Call My Bluff with it!

MaMight · 15/12/2009 10:43

We use the word condiments. It's easier than saying "would anyone like ketchup or pickle or chutney or dip-dip or mustard or...etc etc"

Good effort StNick, but none of those I'm afraid.

OP posts:
VintageGardenia · 15/12/2009 10:44

Your table is obviously better stocked than mine!

IMoveTheStarsForNoOne · 15/12/2009 12:48

this thread has been driving me to distraction all morning, but just can't find it/work it out grr.

IneedacleanerIamalazyslattern · 15/12/2009 12:58

fanjolina re beson/bisum.
It is a kind of light hearted word when used in Scotland to describe a girl though not used in a particularly harsh way.
For example if dd did something a bit smart arsed I might chuckle and say wee bisum.

IneedacleanerIamalazyslattern · 15/12/2009 12:58

By smart arsed I meant when she regularly rarely gets one over me and I can't arue with her kind of thing.

robino · 15/12/2009 12:58

I thought I'd got it! But then it would appear that tracklement (or sometimes, trucklement) only pertains to savoury type things that go with meat.

MaMight · 15/12/2009 13:03

Tracklement is an excellent word.

I've been doing other things in the hope that the word will come to me in a thunderbolt. You can never remember a word when you're tying too hard.

OP posts:
MaMight · 15/12/2009 13:04

And, you see, if there is a specific word to describe savory type things to go with meat it gives me hope that there really is also a word for things to be spread on toast at the breakfast table.

OP posts:
uberalice · 15/12/2009 13:11

smorgasbord?

squeaver · 15/12/2009 14:03

Oh God, now I'm wondering if it was tracklement I was thinking of.