Once, when my mother and my sister were playing Scrabble (or maybe Boggle)

[conuly]

my sister used the word "loreal". This, of course, is the adjectival form of the word "lore", meaning the space between the eye and the bill of a bird. Not that my sister knew that at the time, or my mother, but when playing against my mother you take no chances. NONE. So they looked it up, like so and what do you know. It's a word.

At this my mother asked in disgust what sort of person would EVER need to use that word, to which my sister replied "I don't know, people who study birds!" She couldn't remember the much more common word ornithologist (which I now realize I've been saying wrong my entire life), and that is why my mother tells this story often.

Of course, she's sometimes repeated this story to people who have never even heard the word "ornithologist" and therefore have no idea why the story is funny. These people are just plain ignorant, but it can't be helped. (Well, it could be, but it won't be, so it amounts to just about the same thing.)

It's amazing the sort of random connections that come up, because this whole post really has to do with today's Sheldon comic. Arthur (the duck) clearly doesn't know that, in fact, you can interpret coffee grounds to see the future. Or at least, people do interpret coffee grounds to see the future, though I don't think it works. Reading the dregs of your drink is, as a group, referred to as tasseography, another largely useless, not-even-on-spellcheck word that springs instantly to my mind.

Still, one of these days I will find a purpose for all these random little bits of information I have floating about. Not sure what purpose that might be, but as long as I continue to pick information up almost from the ether (ask me about Catholic saints one day. I don't know as much as some people, but for a non-Catholic who cannot remember even once reading about saints except to corroborate what I already knew, I know quite a bit!) the odds of finding a use must be increasing.

Comments

[velasco.livejournal.com]

You sure that she wasn't going for L'Oréal the haircare product line, and only sheer coincidence saved her? :p

[conuly]

Who the heck knows?

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

When I was a teenager I was able to use my extensive mental databank of useless trivia to win radio contests. I won a lot of Teen Burger meals at A & W, and a Dr. Hook record.

[conuly]

I've considered game shows, but the TV ones, at least, always start with "easy" questions that I have no idea about. It's just not fair.

Saints trivia test

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

St. Expedite. (I'll give you one)

St. Fiacre.

St. Concordia. (Hint: she watches over you)

Re: Saints trivia test

[conuly]

1. He's the saint of "being fast" in the same way that a lot of saints get weird things tacked on to them, in his case because of the name. He has something to do with crows when portrayed, but I don't want to look it up to cheat. And he gets prayed to for success in lawsuits, which just has to be fun.

3. Your hint is making me think she's *not* the Concordia who handles wet nurses and nursing mothers generally?

2. I just don't know. I'm googling now, but I don't think that counts, it's cheating.

Re: Saints trivia test

[conuly]

Edit: Strike that, I did know about Fiacre, I just didn't know how to spell it. But I know how I know about him, and that's because my mother thinks the story of how he became patron saint of cab drivers (my family used to drive cab for a few years in New Orleans) is really funny.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I suspect you would be handy to have on a team on Only Connect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_Connect). Once they had a team guess what the connection was based on only the first clue, because one team member happened to have read (via the random button) the wikipedia article on that particular thing earlier in the week. And it was such a specific piece of information, that he knew that that must be the answer.

They got major kudos for that.

One day I will need to know that barbed wire was invented in 1874, and Rudolf Nureyev was born on the Trans-Siberian Express in 1938. Maybe even in conjunction. I have no idea why or when, but I hold onto them just in case. Oh, and related to the tasseography - tyromancy is a form of divination based on cheese. Useful for those who are caffeine free, perhaps.

[conuly]

I will need to know that barbed wire was invented in 1874

This actually comes up as a plot point in a murder mystery by Donna Andrews. The one with the extreme croquet.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

Validation!

I thought of your story about Jenn today. Someone at work totally failed to find the word they wanted and had to describe it in the way Jenn did.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I often inspect new and interesting words, like tasseography, to see if I could build them in Scrabble. Tasseography is possible, and comes with fifty bonus points and possibly bragging rights.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

I remember that game!! And the fact that it became an oft-repeated story. LOL.

[conuly]

Wait, you were there for that game? Where was I?

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

I was. We all were.

It was in the downstairs kitchen. Jenn had to grab a dictionary to define the word, and then stood up and very proudly and loudly exclaimed the definition.

It was a weekend, lol.

Also, it was Boggle.