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Early Christmas present

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crueby:

--- Quote from: mklotz on November 04, 2022, 05:25:47 PM ---You forgot...

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant something of little or no value. In order, those were flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili (which sound like four of the seven dwarves, Roman version, but I digress).

As a learned joke, somebody put all four of these together and then stuck –fication on the end to make a noun for the act of deciding that something is totally and utterly valueless (a verb, floccinaucinihilipilificate, to judge a thing to be valueless, can also be constructed, but hardly anybody ever does). The first recorded use is by William Shenstone in a letter in 1741: “I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money”.

I don't know about you guys but, in my shop, a word to describe something that is "totally and utterly valueless" gets more than a little use.

--- End quote ---
I do like the alternate 7-dwarves names. I've heard others like Gassy, Fluffy, Snoopy, Dizzy, Cranky, Donder, Blitzen...   :Jester:
My word for something completely useless is usually either 'manager' or 'politician'. Or 'Marketing'. Or anything along that vein!    :lolb:

Wow - we came a long way from an engraver really fast!

tghs:
I have its great grandfather at work!!!!

crueby:
Ooh, a real one! Nice!

mklotz:
I built one that uses Rapidograph stencils (remember those?)

crueby:
Thats pretty slick! They still make those stencils? I remember using those back in school, a LONG time ago!  Since they come (at least back then) in different fonts and sizes, adjustable scaling on the machine is not that important.

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