Here’s the words that, while interesting, were not Week-worthy:

January 5: MOOC, droppage, jukochodai, slow steaming.

filiopietism

The author would have us look to the East, particularly China, where filiopietism—privileging family, particularly parents and elders, above all others—reigns.

Filiopietism comes from Latin roots meaning “son” and “dutifulness”. “Pietism” without the prefix filio- can be used to mean “affected or exaggerated piety.” There is also the nonce-word “filiism,” which was used to mean (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) “undue partiality for one’s own son.”

The Secular Faith, December 27

gentillesse

Nancy and Gaston were two middle-aged, not particularly attractive people,” she writes. “He was a selfish, career-obsessed philanderer; she was febrile, needy and given to ‘shrieking,’ yet the discipline, tenderness and gentillesse of their relationship exposes the limits of many modern sexual mores.

Gentillesse is usually translated as “kindness,” but implies the performance of kind acts, rather than just kind words or the absence of unkindness.

Pursuer Become The Pursued, December 30

baby stays 

“Race France to France” is full of the jargon of the ocean-racing game, with references to keel hinge pins and baby stays and PBO rigging, but there is enough mayhem and side-story-telling to keep even the uninitiated engaged.

Baby stays are “inner forestays,” and help support the lower mast. PBO rigging is rigging made of polybenzoxazole, which is stronger and lighter than steel. Hinge pins, well, they pin hinges.

There and Back Again, January 1

droppage 

Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its forecast for this season’s citrus production in Florida by 5%, to 146 million boxes from 154 million. Among the reasons it cited was an increased rate of droppage—a term referring to fallen fruit—now projected to be the highest since 1970.

The term “droppage” is also used to refer to fallen fruit other than citrus, including stone fruit, grapes, cranberries, and even tree nuts such as almonds.

Disease Rips Through Florida Citrus, January 2

 

January 11: reminder packaging, laolaiqiao, fake books, hysteresis.

Pomaks

The villagers—Bulgarian-speaking Muslims, sometimes referred to as ‘Pomaks’ or ‘people who have suffered’—only marry in winter.

Alternative theories about the etymology of “Pomak” include that it came from a Greek word meaning “drinker” or from a Bulgarian word meaning “helper.” The word Pomak is considered offensive by some Bulgarian Muslims.

Photos of the Day: Jan. 3, January 3

re-scripts 

Mr. Potter makes extensive use of imperial re-scripts—legal rulings produced as responses to particular cases in order to set precedents for the future.

The word re-script (also written “rescript”) comes from a Latin word meaning “written reply”; it is also used to describe a letter from the Pope or a papal decision on a question of ecclesiastical law or doctrine.

A Ruler Touched by the Divine, January 5

memorialize 

Unfortunately, doing so can be a confusing maze because most Web companies approach these questions differently Google for example won’t shut a Gmail account without a court order, while Facebook actively seeks to either shut down accounts belonging to the deceased, or “memorialize” them – a process that leaves the person’s Facebook account online for his existing friend network to see and interact with, but prevents anyone from logging in to it.

The memorialized Facebook page is part of a greater trend to commemorate lives in places other than graveyards and mausoleums. Other types of memorializations include the “ghost bike” — a white-painted bike placed where a cyclist was killed and the “descansos”, memorials placed along highways to remember loved ones killed in automobile accidents.

What To Do Online When a Loved One Dies, January 4

January 18: Delphos, gers, peak-car, quantified self

combat breathing

A simple technique, sometimes called combat breathing, can help even an untrained person overcome extreme stress. Our breathing is automatic, but you can also control your breathing, unlike your heart rate or your adrenaline levels. In very stressful situations, take four deep breaths, on a four-count (breathe in for four beats, hold, breathe out for four beats), and this can bring you back from a state of super-arousal.

“Autogenic breathing” is a more technical term used for “combat breathing,” which is also called “tactical breathing.”

Apocalypse Tips, From Antibiotics to Zombies, January 11

crowdhacking

The general public is partly to blame for this because of its reliance on easy-to-crack passwords such as “123456” or “password.” But the hackers also are getting smarter. Banding together in what’s known as crowdhacking, they use thousands of machines to solve password puzzles, Deloitte said.

“Crowd-” as a prefix used mean a group of unrelated people working together towards a common problem, is also found in crowdsourcing (pushing small tasks to a group of widely distributed people), and crowdfunding (finding many small investors for a venture).

Don’t Count Traditional PCs Out Just Yet, January 15

breast-sellers

I’m not talking about the saccharine inanities of Barbara Cartland or the more recent sexed-up dramas. Those are the sorts of books Heyer herself dubbed “breast-sellers.”

The term “bodice-ripper,” which has been used for romance novels where the heroine is paired with a very domineering male (sometimes called an “alpha”) is occasionally considered offensive.

The Escape Artist, January 11

January 25: funambulist, metatarso-phalangeal, tongqi, omas.

backscatters

The TSA said Thursday that it will replace most of the scanners—known as backscatters—with ones that filter images to depict only potentially hazardous items on a generic human silhouette, rather than an image of the traveler’s body.

The backscatter machines are also called “whole body imagers” and (by the ACLU) “virtual strip search” machines, because of the detailed images they produce.

TSA to Halt Revealing Body Scans at Airports, Jan 18

juk

Thai black glutinous rice, a long-grain type used in Southeast Asian puddings, porridges and breads, is sticky when cooked due to a high starch content. Matt Blondin, executive sous-chef of Daisho, in Toronto, combines the inky stuff with chicken stock, white wine and Parmesan for a risotto-like take on juk, a Chinese rice porridge.

Juk is very similar to the rice gruel called ‘congee’, and is often used as a “feel-better” food, like chicken soup.

Black and White And Red All Over, January 18

catfish

The 2010 documentary, which helped popularize the term “Catfish” (which has come to be defined as someone who uses an online scheme to pretend to be someone else) follows Yaniv “Nev” Schulman as he starts an online relationship with a woman who turns out to be concealing a very different identity.

As slang, “catfish” can also mean an unattractive person, or (according to the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English) “a person who speaks too much and thinks too little.”

The ‘Catfish’ Team on Manti Te’O and How to Avoid Getting Catfished, January 18
sissy bounce

To envision his version of it, imagine the most outlandish down-South hip-hop and then fold in spectacular aspects of Mardi Gras and a teeming, preening drag show. Big Freedia’s liking for the latter made him (or her, as it were) an ambassador for the subgenre referred to as “sissy bounce,” but there’s no sense in getting too categorical about music so big-spirited and irrepressible.

The scholar Alix Chapman has described “sissy bounce” as taking the essential elements of bounce music (including call-and-response elements and a beat known as “triggerman”) and using it to “comment and explain” the lives of people marginalized by their sexuality or gender.

The Pop Scene: Keeping Their Composure, January 22