New Words

[Wulfruna]

It's the "argument" that rings true around here.....

[clvrlad]

well its the diet coke that seems familiar how many times ive heard some one pigging out then ordering a diet coke to go with it.....

where as i allways get the full fat coke

[Bunnylump]

My cousin used to be a waitress. She said she had a lady once who ordered a full English Breakfast and added "Oh and I'd better have a grapefruit half too, to make me slim"!!

[giraffe]

GENERAL LEDGE the things you have stuffed in your brain, but don't really know much(anything) about them.
The opposite of general knowledge (and not Sergeant Shelf as OH suggested!)

eg While we were away we were talking about different types of tides and the words NEAP TIDE popped into my mouth and I had no idea what it meant.

[Bunnylump]

Yep. My brain is stuffed full of General Ledge. And it's all just teetering waiting to fall over the edge never to be retrieved or understood.

[clvrlad]

neap tide is the the extra low tide at the sea side... if general ledge serves

[Laura]

I like the GENERAL LEDGE term. I was talking to my dad last night about something totally unconnected, and he explained that he'd just realised why he knew that Krakatoa is on Java, because there's a film on with something like that in the title. He'd remembered the title, and therefore the fact that Krakatoa was on Java, but had no idea why he knew this!

[giraffe]

Well I have since looked it up and it means the lowest high tide rather than the lowest low tide. So a not very impressive high tide.

[gill216]

We are now the proud possessors of a tide book. It tells the time and height of both high and low tides.

Yes everyone, it was me who had one over the top and agreed to the buying of a boat.............

[clvrlad]

just buy a tide predictor made by William Thomson

if you can get an orig one ill be very impressed

[MBH]

he explained that he'd just realised why he knew that Krakatoa is on Java, because there's a film on with something like that in the title.

I find I have an awful lot of LEDGE picked up from music lyrics. For instance - I'd be guessing to try and pick which county Birmingham is in, but I know for a fact that the USA Birmingham is in Alabama which is in the South of the country.

How? The start of Tuxedo Junction


There are thousands of more examples, but you can never think of one when people ask

[Laura]

Aha! A song we had to sing with my choir for the Young Voices concert, the year before last.

On the first day of January,1892,
They opened Ellis Island and they let the people through.
And the first to cross the threshold of the Isle of Hopes and Fears,
Was Annie Moore from Ireland, was all of 15 years.

Isle of hope, isle of fears,
Isle of freedom, isle of tears,
but its not the isle I left behind.
That Isle of hunger, isle of pain,
Isle I'll never see again,
but the isle of home is always on my mind.


It goes on for another couple of verses. I know more now about the Irish potato famine and Ellis Island than I ever did before. The problem is, I have since realised that some of the facts in the later verses are slightly wrong, to get it to rhyme! And it made everyone in the choir cry when we sang it at the end of term, and half of them were leaving.

[Cenwulf]

Can we pair GENERAL LEDGE with this term?

GENERAL IGNORANCE: The information you thought was true but is actually incorrect.
As can be found in the QI Book of General Ignorance.


A neap tide is the tide with the least range. It usually occurs just after the first and last quarters of the moon, as the gravity ofd the moon is perpendicular to that of the sun. A spring tide is the tide with the greatest range. It occurs just after the full and new moons, as the sun and moon are pulling in parallel.

[Bunnylump]

I like the GENERAL LEDGE term. I was talking to my dad last night about something totally unconnected, and he explained that he'd just realised why he knew that Krakatoa is on Java, because there's a film on with something like that in the title. He'd remembered the title, and therefore the fact that Krakatoa was on Java, but had no idea why he knew this!

I take it you mean the film Krakatoa East of Java? Trouble is, that Krakatoa is, in fact, west of Java. So I'm hoping that people check up on this type of general ledge!!

[Cenwulf]

Wading Through Treacle Moment (or WTTM for short): when you get really stuck on a puzzle and have no idea how to progress.

[MBH]

From the same 'area' of puzzling:

Repeatalogical Trap - where every return to a given puzzle starts you down the same path of logic that you have already tried and proved incorrect. This can be subtle - when you think you have a new idea, but practical application soon becomes the same logical steps

[Bunnylump]

I spend most of my life in one of those.

[Cenwulf]

Celebroholic: Someone who seems to be intoxicated by their own fame and will do anything to maintain their position in the public eye (e.g. Katie Price/Jordan).

[Cenwulf]

Telebrity: Someone who is only famous for having appeared on television, usually in a reality TV programme.

[Cenwulf]

As 'vuvuzela' is now in the dictionary, I've thought of this new word:

vuvuzealous (adj): making a lot of noise without much actual achievement.