Its been a year of new thingies.
New words and idea thingies.
Some have been received from the distant past and some from modern young minds.
Whilst watching the movie Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein I heard a word I knew from another arena. It popped up while the short one was unpacking Frankenstein's monster. He picked up some packaging and said 'Excelsior!'.
Now, my own knowledge of this word comes entirely from Stan Lee. he signed off his editorials with Excelsior so I was surprised to hear it said in an old black and white Universal movie.
Looking it up it turns out that Excelsior is a US brand name for wood wool, a form of soft shavings used in packing crates such as the one containing the monster! I wonder if anyone uses it for Ebay stuff?
We live and learn!
I lived and learned more when a youngster told me about two primitive beasts I was unaware of: the Titanoboa and Gigantopithecus blacki.
The Titanoboa was a colossal snake of knee-trembling proportions. Up to 42 feet long the monster was the largest snake that ever slithered. Fortunately it slithered 60 million years ago!
Gigantopithecus blacki was equally impressive. At 10 feet tall, this ancient Orang Utan was the biggest primate that ever rubbed its chin. There is evidence that it brushed up against Home erectus, our own distant relative in an early reality version of Planet of the Apes!
Completing this smattering of new words is vog. Its a mash-up of volcano and smog and describes the sulfuric mist arising from volcanic explosions. Not to be confused with vlog, which is a video blog.
Similarly, Laze is the name for the clouds of gas rising up from lava hitting the sea. Its a mash-up of lava and haze. Not to be confused with lazy, which is how I feel most Sundays!
The final word is about ideas. Its Moonshot. Or I should say a Moonshot. Taken from the Apollo moon landing, its now apparently used by the business and innovation worlds to capture their far-thinking notions. Ideas that shape the bright jet-pack future, planning that makes us wear sunglasses and gasp, projects that engineer blue skies floating above the drudgery of now. They are all Moonshots or Moonshot thinking. Google have a department called X doing just that.
I wonder what your Moonshots are readers?
From a living and learning aging geek I leave you with but one word, which I'm surely unfit to use:
Excelsior!
Apparently excelsior relates to excellence, higher,ever upward etc. and occurs on the New York state coat of arms (according to one internet source), so not just wood shavings!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Andy. I wondered why Stan Lee used it! I wonder what we call wood wool here in the UK?
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