Wordsalad

Today, Unusually, We Will Look At A Whole Lot Of Words
Yes, that was a lie; just testing.  In fact, very much as usually, Conrad is going to fester, froth and variously ferment about words.  Words, words and more words.  And if you're not at all sure about this as entertainment, then you are most definitely in the wrong place.  Facebook is that way.
   But first!  We have some gloasting to get round to.  Art?

 

      This is the original edition from 1928 I'll have you know, and it's in pretty good nick for a book that's 91 years old, probably helped by the clear plastic dustcovers.  It has a rocking substantial map that's still glued in at the back.  Art?

See?  Robust shizzle.

     You want to see the Table of Contents?  Okay.  Art?

      A bit blurry, admittedly, but that's the T.o.C. and there's a total of several tens of thousands of words in there.  Words words words!
     Here's some more words.  Art?

     All for the entirely modest sum of £14, which is less than the full price for a single of one of these books.  I have that volume on Modern Tanks because, whilst I'm up to speed on pretty much all tanks of the First and Second Unpleasantness, I am rather less knowledgable on modern stuff.   And, if I'm to maintain that boast about BOOJUM!'s subject matter being tanks, atom bombs and zombies, I need to upskill on tanks.

      "Tommy's War" is by Richard Van Emden, who has a fine pedigree when it comes to works on the First Unpleasantness, and I'm glad to lay hands on it for 20% of what it should cost; and the third one is edited by Prof. Gary Sheffield, whom you ought to know.  Art?

The baby-faced boy himself

      Now, motley, time to climb into the opened middle of the biggest book in the world, and then we will close it.  Forcefully!

Don't hesitate, Mot - step right in.

"Tatterdemalion"
Another of those words that kind of popped up in my head.  You know, as they tend to without rhyme or reason - ah, what it is to have a properly functional brain!*
     I looked it up, and it appears to have come into existence in the seventeenth century, from the English word "Tattered" - okay, okay, I only looked it up on Google, because my Collins and Brewers are both upstairs.  There may be more on this once I get back upstairs.
     It means to be "A person of tattered appearance".
     Which I am not.  Not today.  For I have been to Peppi's.  Art?

Stern, yet dignified**

     Your Humble Scribe's hair may be snowy and white, but at least there's still a fair amount of it.  The bits growing in my ears are a little excessive, mind -

More Absurd With The Word!
You know Conrad, never happy unless he's got someething to whinge about.  If he wasn't angry at the weather or the traffic or roadworks or having to get up at 05:45 or disco or The Sound Of Music or Russell Brand, why!  he'd only be half alive.
     Today's Frothing Nitric Ire concerns the MEN's Codewords, which come three at a time in the Saturday edition.  Having done two of them, I do have an objection or two.
     "KAYAK": this is at the edge of permissible.  Here in the Pond of Eden, we call them "canoes", and they are a fashion essential during the 'summer' months.
               
                                         Canoe                                                             Kayak
          Seriously, I could paddle downhill all the way into Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell for most of the week.
     "KORUNA": I did wonder whether or not I'd got the Number 5 as "K"  correct when I got this word, since I'd never heard of it before.  What is it?  Can you eat it?  Or do you need to call in the fumigators?  Art!

Behold, Koruna

     Surprise surprise.  It is the legal tender of the Czech Republic.  Of course!  How could I not remember that! O wait a minute I never knew it in the first place.  THIS IS NOT REMOTELY FAIR!
     "KIBBUTZ": Again, this is flirting with whether it's permissible or not.  We are living and doing Codewords in the Allotment of Eden, not Israel, after all - I'm sure I'd have noticed were it the other way round (better weather, for one thing).

A kibbutz, he typed, while making tuts.

"FEZZES": Well really!  Again, a foreign word that we here in the Occident know of, even if it's not exactly in common usage, unless you are referring to the Three Mustaphas Three, who hail from Albania, and who wear fezzes.

FEZZES.  Three Mustaphas Three.  Simply fizzing with fezzes.

     "REBUS": You what?  I did Google this originally, and only got some fictional detective called John Rebus, which is completely breaking the Codeword rules, though at this point Your Humble Scribe shouldn't be surprised at their going beyond the envelope of all that is decent and legal and moral.  

John

     I had to look up "Rebus definition" to find out what they really meant.  A variety of puzzle game, where a picture is matched with a letter(s) in order to suggest an answer.  Hey, Mister Codeword Compiler, I have a picture puzzle for you!

Conrad is annoyed

     Right, that's enough wibble about words.  We need to change the subject a tad.  What can we expound upon at short that will take us over the Composition Ton?  For we need less than a hundred words.

     Ah!  I know - "Doom Patrol".  I did warn you that this series is quite bonkers, and it is hitting that bar and exceeding it, though with an unfortunate shortage of sentient talking cockroaches so far.  Still, I live in hope.  After all, if one of your characters is a teleporting street with alternative views on gender and sexuality, whom is fleeing from the Bureau of Normalcy - what's a talking cockroach here or there?

That's Ezekiel for ya - hammy and given to chewing the carpet

*  What's it like, gentle readers?
**  Or - jowly and scowly! <the hideous truth courtesy Mister Hand>