vocabulary

[Chief'sDad]

I thought I had a pretty good vocabulary until I went to the Great Lakes regional. It shounded to me like The Announcer kept calling a tether..a "probiscus"
For those who wondered, but not enough to bother looking it up, here is the definition - straight from The Random House Dictionary.

Pro.bos.cis, n. 1. The trunk of an elephant 2. Any long flexible snout

Apparently pronounced with a soft c. That is, probosis, accent on the pro

[Greg Ross]

Originally posted by Chief'sDad
I thought I had a pretty good vocabulary until I went to the Great Lakes regional. It shounded to me like The Announcer kept calling a tether..a "probiscus"
For those who wondered, but not enough to bother looking it up, here is the definition - straight from The Random House Dictionary.

Pro.bo.cis, n. 1. The trunk of an elephant 2. Any long flexible snout

Apparently pronounced with a soft c. That is, probosis, accent on the pro

Thanks Dad,

You learn something every day...

I have always heard it pronounced pro-'bos-kus (and I thought it was spelled with a -cus), but your post prompted me to consult my Merriam-Webster's. (I don't think we need to go into which one is better. ) It does indeed give the soft C pronunciation as prefered, but also gives the K version as an alternate, and it puts the accent on -bos.

But here's the kicker: the plural is pro-bos-ci-des! (Actually it gives pro-bos-cis-es as the first variant, but I like probosicides, and I think I'll start using it! )

[Chief'sDad]

where in the world did you run into that word before, and where in the world are you going to use the plural form? It's not like elephant trunks come up in everyday conversation.
FYI, I'll defer to your dictionary. I just grabbed what was handy.

[Greg Ross]

Originally posted by Chief'sDad
where in the world did you run into that word before, and where in the world are you going to use the plural form? It's not like elephant trunks come up in everyday conversation.
FYI, I'll defer to your dictionary. I just grabbed what was handy.

I think my first encounter was in the encyclopedia set we had when I was growing up. It had a picture of a Proboscis monkey. It was quite a memorable photograph.


True, elephant proboscides don't come up as the topic of conversation very often, but proboscis is also the term for the mouth parts of mosquitoes and butterflies. And how about the schnozzes of people like Jimmy Durante?

[Chief'sDad]

Ok, thanks for the definitive definition. Below is what dictionary.com has to say(thanks to my son).

pro·bos·cis Pronunciation Key (pr-bss)
n. pl. pro·bos·cis·es or pro·bos·ci·des (-bs-dz)
1. A long flexible snout or trunk, as of an elephant.
2. The slender, tubular feeding and sucking organ of certain invertebrates, such as insects, worms, and mollusks.
3. A human nose, especially a prominent one.

Your pictures tell it all("That's not a banana, that's my nose")


Of course now I find there is a proboscis flower...wonder what that looks like?

Well we certainly know how it applies to FIRST robots. Now if we only knew if they were legal...but that's a story for several other threads.

[usagi1483]

marine worms also have a proboscis used for catching their prey. ;-)
Holly

[Chief'sDad]

Just discovered wordsmith.org
Somebody has way too much time on their hands.
None-the-less, I just subscribed to A Word A Day
I pitty the people I'll be vocabularizing on.

[Adam Y.]

How about this sentence from I got from websters:
In most robots the whosis is attached to the newfangled thingamabob which turns the wheel.
Odd though I didn't think these words would be in the dictionary.

[Elgin Clock]

True those words are not in Websters version of the dictionary but I believe I did see them in the Dr. Seuss version, and he must be a credible person- he is after all a Dr. !!!!

[DaveO'B365]

I've taken quite a few science classes throughout my high school career. i've taken 2 years of biology, and i've always understood that the word was a generic term for the region of the nose that 'sticks out'. hmm, i've also always pronounced it
Pro-BOS-kus, accenting the 'bos', but what do i know? i've lost quite a bit of my faith in public education, and our english department leaves a lot to be desired... That's my input... anyone who scores above 600 on verbal SATs is an anomaly at my school.

Dave- the self-proclaimed best student hack-sawer on 365...
Insanity is relative.

"Like olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else."
-Catch 22

[Adam Y.]

True those words are not in Websters version of the dictionary but I believe I did see them in the Dr. Seuss version, and he must be a credible person- he is after all a Dr. !!!!

I whip out my webster's dictionary and pull out these definitions:
whosis-slang for any person or thing: jocular substitute for a name forgotten or not known
thingamabob or thinumabotb-see thingamajig-any device contrivance gadget etc. jocular substitute for a name not known or temporarily forgotten
newfangled-new novel a humorously derogatory term :
Then again the next time you'll see thingamajig used in a sentence is beyond my guess.

[Leo M]

A thread that features pictures of both Jimmy Durante and a Proboscis Monkey just cannot be complete without my pointing out what I believe to be the true origin of the supposed 'Einstein' quote in ChiefsDad's posts, i.e., a George Burns & Gracie Allen routine :

George : "You see, Gracie, if you put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, it seems like an hour. But, if you kiss a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. That's Relativity."

Gracie : "From THIS Einstein made a living?"

[karlean]

My Team, (GRT, 192) called our extending device the "proboscis" since we saw the kickoff ceremony. However, we ran into a tiny, small insignificant problem. No one knew exactly how to spell or pronouce it. So, the "proboscis" component group came back after a week and told us that they had change their name to the "Happy New Year" group.

"We changed our name, because it perfectly describes what our component needs to do. It needs to go 3...2...1...Happy New Year and the extension is deployed."

[Andrew Rudolph]

Ok i dont know about the rest of you but when people write how to pronouce it doesnt work as well as hearing it. So i got the pronunciation from M-w.com

proboscis



Andrew

[Amy Beth]

Originally posted by wysiswyg
How about this sentence from I got from websters:
In most robots the whosis is attached to the newfangled thingamabob which turns the wheel.
Odd though I didn't think these words would be in the dictionary.

w00t! i can't wait to use that in normal convo