I love your love of words But I think you’ve jumped the gun with this one. Faux is the more likely precursor of phoney. ‘That’s terribly faux’ (as people indeed used to say) becomes ‘that’s terribly phoney’. The fawney-rig idea is colourful and memorable but it’s folk etymology and unlikely. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense that a cant word (criminal slang) would be widely known. Cant is meant to be code. It also doesn’t make sense that it would reappear in a new spelling in a new country over a century later with nothing in between. There’s no occurrence of fawney being used to mean fake in general, it only describes this type of fraud in a very limited setting. All the references to this etymology in dictionaries are prefaced with ‘possibly’. Generally if the etymology involves an entertaining story, someone’s just made it up. Faux on the other hand does simply mean fake.
Guess what, this con is still played in Paris. Woman walks by and pretends to find a gold ring in the street, except that she is Seventh Day Adventist & doesn’t really know if it’s gold & doesn’t want it but what luck & share the luck by giving her something for the ring…
I thought for sure the phoney example was not the bag – before the pan and zoom it’s not visible, but Marina’s breasts are front and center. At least you can’t fake intelligence.
Wow, thanks for explaining that. I’m sure no one would have gotten the joke if you hadn’t spelled it out for us. It’s good that there are people like you to help weed out subtlety.
TongueTwislers, the email address that you use for this HFW site and the gravatar site have to be exactly the same.
If you are using the same email, then make sure you activate the image that you wish to use. I think you click on the image in your image list, then you’ll get a confirmation dialog. Once confirmed, it can take a few minutes for the gravatar to show up.
If I went through ninety percent of every website I’ve ticked to, I sometimes wonder what I’d find.
I just don’t have time.
And Bob, between me and you, what I’ll need in the future is something like Marina to talk to the world about computer cognition with on http://www.HotForMergatroid.us. I’m taking over …, Her, and others, a team, we’re gonna Rock Tradition, and the very foundations of the world.
If I had the money of a bill gates, we’d've already been setting up scripts and production and have the show on the road.
Imagine Marina saying, “… no, sorry mergatroidal. I have other goals and plans in life.”
“Like what?”
“…, and what about real fame and fortune, Marina?”
Ha! I can’t really imagine the conversation progressing too far and I don’t get what I want.
(I’m sittin’ and waitin’ for this freakin’ gold mine to start rollin’ thunder …)
I need a full time editor to go over my posts before submitting them.
Change the second to the last post, third paragraph to, … and Bob, between you and I,
and the fifth paragraph would read better if I wrote instead, … imagine Marina writing (not saying) in response to this post, “… no, sorry mergatroidal. I have other plans and goals in life.”
As you marina have been like a super hero ….opening my mind to Words you Just take for GRANTED ……..there is that word again….Granted …….good one as well……ooxooxoxox
hi hfw…..hope u be fine …i havnt had teacher like u….any wa thanks for sharing information….my question is ,,,newyear celebration( christmas) …who made it?..and where comes from?….
If you haven’t seen Orson Welles’ film “For for Fake.” It’s a very smart and funny movie, and it’s is not well-know at all. A forgotten gem.
On the issue of being phoney in general, a philosophical question: isn’t it part of being human to be fake, or at least a little fake.
I mean, don’t we all have a certain idea of who we are (or would like to be) and we play that role–better or worse? Our image of ourselves is pretty much a fabrication whether we admit it or not. If you are teacher, you play a role. If you’re a business person, it’s a role, etc, etc.. If you’re “hot,” it’s a role. You could be beautiful and not be hot and vice-versa–up to a point of course.
In celebration of the new law in California where you can’t… Read the rest » wht does this mean can’t read the rst, these are videos how do you read them unless your talking about reading body language?
I’m new to the site but I gotta say it’s great. I’ve got way too many words I’m curious about but for now how about … acquire or ludicrous? Thanks, Duane
PS I had no idea were Phoney came from. Pretty cool.
Over the years, ISPs have been caught in catch 22 in trying to deal with spam. What most ISPs have done is to make the default email spam settings very aggressive whereby the majority of emails go to spam.
For example, an innocent word such as “hot” could be flagged as spam. The ISPs have put the onus on the user to tweak their spam settings in their web based control that works for them.
Possible Recommendation:
Could you change your “HELP” menu at the top to “HELP / FAQ”.
Then, add a sentence or two about email settings.
Example:
In order to receive emails from HotForWords, make sure that you have checked your email spam and filter settings to allow emails from my domain HotForWords.com.
If you did not receive an expected email from HotForWords, check your spam folder and make the appropriate adjustments in your email settings. Contact your ISP if you need assistance with your email control panel settings.
usually, adding an e-mail address to the contact list for an e-mail client obviates spam filtering on that address, so try adding blogreg-do-not-reply-11@hotforwords.com to your contacts and see if that helps…
also, my employer is notorious for not paying much attention when moving e-mails around and adds friends to his “blocked senders” list, so you might check there, too…
Hello.
I’ve question about adding -ish at the end of some words (ex. short person saying ” I’m tall -ish”). I’ve heard it few times already and becouse english isn’t my first language I was wondering what does it mean and what is it origin.
And becouse I moved to England some time ago I was wondering about another thing: why American “center” is British “centre” (there was some other word with er->re swithed but I can’t remember it right now).
I’ll be glad if somebody could help me with that.
Cheers
well, everyone knows Brits colour their humour in the centre…
’cause they can’t spell…
as for “-ish,” people use it when they can’t think of the correct term but want to make some sort of comparison to a tern others would know…or perhaps to avoid a “politicaly-incorrect” term…
like comparing, as you say, a “shortish” person to a taller one…”shortish” deflects the supposed insult when a person is “height-challenged”…
I still havn’t figured out the end of the video. Was it another blooper or were you still hung over from the other video. Tell us the secret of the closeup of the hand bag.
I notice no one commented on Marina golden bag. Oh thats right you were looking at something else. So is that real gold? Maybe is gold plated?Might be! Who knows? Im more interested in what in the bag! How does it go?… You can learn a lot about a woman just by the contents of her bag?
I wonder if she meant the gold belt was a phony. Or maybe the bag was not a Gucci. I don’t know. I know thats what they are there for but I hate to talke to a womans upper frontLes and not to her face.
Yea I have that same problem when talking to women. I know it rude to look below her face, but my Neanderthals instinct just overwhelms me . I wish their was a switch to turn it off. Its like holding your breath. Ya I can do it for a minute or two but its killing me!!!!!
I’m too busy trying to keep up with the comments. I wrote two articles today but tried to read the comments in between and it was really hard. This board flies. I didn’t know guys (and some women but it seems to be mostly guys ) could be so chatty I guess if the topic is the right topic, they can!
Mrs JCR we are just as gossipy as ladies are when we are in a group. We have a few ladies who comment, but we could welcome more. It makes for intersting comments and conversation.
Mike
Yea I cluck like a chicken here. I too have the same problem. I have many projects im working on and I take too many breaks to read the comments. Im getting the flow down now. I normally just respond to the emailed replies to my comments. When Im done for the day I’ll go back and reply to some comments. Even on ones that are a few days old.
Hey JCR, Go to gravatar.com and make yourself an avatar. It will help you find your comments faster visually. As you scroll down if you see any comment below yours then you can do a quick reply and move on. Its a speed trick I used to whip through the blog.
All of my responses are reasoned and restrained, not given to fancy or felonious dribble. Indeed, I am the epitome of forthrightiousness & verisimilitude.
Well I see it easy to confuse you Jcr. All one has to do is turn sideways and that interferes with your radar and one becomes invisible…
- Something Robin Williams said in one of his stand up routines.
What do you mean I’m not a Captain named Jack? Im Jack Sparrow! Haven’t you seen me in the movies? I’ve been in 2 movies, 1 TV show, one rock video. Cher – If I Could Turn Back Time
The ship is the USS Missouri BB-63 in the now defunct Long Beach Naval station. You can’t see me because Im way in the back. heheh The Might Mo was my home for 4 years. She is still my true love after all these years. I’m getting teary eyed just watching the video. And all she is.. is a boat made out of metal. Hum. Weird…
Thats just fake Capman. Not a true speed indicator. It showed me a hight speed than my service provider can put out for the type of service I have. I know I don’t get 3mbps down. Im lucky to get 1.2mbps. My service is rated at 1.5mbps.
Try this one, your results should be a bit more accurate. http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1
All my test where done in Seattle/Kirkland, Wa to the servers in San Francisco, Ca. Tests where preformed on Sunday morning at 0223 hours and finished at 0234 hours.
Marina’s link to speakeasy website in (San Francisco CA):
Download Speed: 1648 kbps (206 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 225 kbps (28.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
DSL Reports/ Broadband Reports Site:
Megapath (San Francisco CA)
1365 Kbps 264 Kbps
Speedtest. Net:
Speedtest.net (San Francisco CA)
1606 Kbps 244 Kbps
MSN/cNET.com site:
2574.1 kbps No upload speeds listed
My wireless provider is Clearwire. I get 1.5Mbps down and 256kbps upload. Now thats max alloted speeds. I should see lower speed for over head from the computers talking to each other.
MSN was the most inaccurate test out there. 2.5Mbps, wow I wish!
Whats interesting is the speakeasy servers on their own server differ from the DLS Reports test servers. 1.6mbps vs 1.3 mbps. download.
Many people use Speedtest.net. The also show me over 1.5
Of all the tools I have used DSL Reports/ Broadband Reports to be the most accurate of the bunch. I have been with them for 7 years.
Wow! Has it been that long? – “Joined: 2001-07-13 (7th year!)”
Thats like 5 computers ago..
Hi- ya capman, yeah I’m feeling chatty tonight. Under captainjacks’ test, my pc is at 5030 Kb/s for download, and 940 Kb/s for uploads. Back to words topic: I’ve been saving a bundle on gas when I did a double conversion on my car, first with Magneto Hydrodynamic Technology ,and then H20 burner
latin, Mike (i’m Tom or Annudder, btw), hortus = garden; colere=tend…but as Dorothy Parker once said:
“You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.“
Although the ultimate origin of slut is unknown, it first appeared in Middle English in 1402 as slutte (AHD), with the meaning “a dirty, untidy, or slovenly woman.” Even earlier, Geoffrey Chaucer used the word sluttish (c.1386) to describe a slovenly man; however, later uses appear almost exclusively associated with women. The modern sense of “a sexually promiscuous woman” dates to at least 1450.
oh, and…’er…you have a tendency to state the obvious…
Well, if you visit to Busch Garden in Tampa, Florida – on one of their exhibits for Tutankhamun claims that beer was thought to first be brewed by the Egyptians. It was one of the many things to enjoy in the Edge of Africa tour.
Another was the goddess Hathor. She guarded Tut’s tomb and was embodied to be as a cow, steer or bovine. Modern day culture does not recognize various Egyptian deities however, it it rumoured that
upon many modern holidays we prepare a bonfire to the cow-god
in her honor. Check out musical reference – GREEN JELLY, Obey the Cowgod!
Regarding the HFW increased speed and not to take away from BoArgMir’s comment below, here is some info most might not know.
I have never had a speed issue with the HFW website. I am in Calif on a 3 Mb/sec DSL connection and the server is in Fla.
If you are on dialup or a slow DSL, then you would see an improvement in the new HFW server.
Many of you are possibly on a deficient DSL connection. Yes, many of you are getting screwed and ISP’s are dunces and thieves.
Also, many of you who think you have DSL, are actually on 1/4 DSL or 1/2 DSL. Even if you have purchased a fast DSL connection, if you haven’t done the various tests, you may be getting cheated, on purpose or ISP incompetence.
Also, the US is in the slow lane of DSL throughput. Most of Europe and other locations have on average much faster DSL connections.
I am in Florida (who does the server? are these people I may already know? Sun Systems, maybe?)
I have a wireless 54 mb/sec connection to a hi-speed server.
actual draw is about 10%, or 6 mb/sec. I saw the lags creep in over a period of time, and a dramatic improvement after the transition to the new server. Part of the dilemna is the traffic during holidays makes for increased wait states, both site connecting and internal connectivity.
You can get T1 or T3 connections here in the states, just like Europe, but you will pay a premium price for it, again, just like Europe!
having dial up or slow internet speed doesn’t help, as the slow
downs can lead to “time outs”, and you can’t get on at all during some holidays. the traffic to HotForWords has been building linearly and an upgrade was probably past due! Add the quantum traffic increase from the holidays and it’s a disaster. Not good to lose your site during the boom periods, especially when the number of hits are the criteria for getting rated. The ISP issue you mention is more about bandwidth being robbed by tracking programs. These are silently downloaded during a program installation, so, run the scans, dump the offending cookies, update your cookies exception list to block future attempts to replant them, clean your tracks – and you should be good.
One culprit is Divx always claiming to update their program., only to replant cookies. Identify and skip these upgrades where possible.
Thanks for your input – you brought some attention to issues that get overlooked.
Is this only a PC problem? I’m hoping so. I mean, compared to a Mac. We have both types of computers so I figure if it happens only on one, I can always use the other when visiting this site. But so far, no problems.
Also don’t forget that the page is not full loaded until all external links are downloaded. So for services like digg.com, addthis.com, gravitar.com, cocoment.com, feedburner.com,( did I miss any?) have to load before you can really do anything. Gravitar works fine if you only have like 30 or so comments but it really gets bogged down at 300 comments. CoComments is a big issue. I ping coco at over 199 ms. to about 375 and 516 ms. I ping HFW I get 99 ms. So coco is slow. Gravtar is about 70ms to 500ms. digg is at 47ms, and addthis is at 100ms.
So you have to add up all the other sites that are apart of the equation of the true speeds we are getting from HFW.
So true Jack the more a page has to load the slower it will make it. We sit here all day commenting and wonder why the page is so slow to reload. We are the ones adding to the problem. But isn’t it fun
“The Ivory Tower” at my work when we talk about the bosses that make all the stupid decisions like they are the rulers and we workers are just the lowly peasants, we say that they work in the ivory tower. Hmmm, ivory tower. We know the meaning when we use the term but what did it originally mean? Is there an actual ivory tower that kings and queens used to live in? Where did the term come from?
thanks Hot For Words,
your student – Darren “the dogfarmer”
I’ve worked for P&G (makers of Ivory soap)
in the past and I always thought that was where
the phrase originated! The building their
administration and executive departments,
located in Cincinnati, were in the Ivory Tower
building downtown.for years. This could all
be secondary to the actual coining of the
phrase, though – the origin could involve
elephants and India and God only knows.
Marina could investigate and make a game
of this one, for sure!
Good request!
i checked the contest website yesterday & the results still weren’t posted, so i joined & e-mailed support to find out what-the-flip was taking so dang long…
I’m on an Apple computer riding Tiger, and I opened up my web browser, the default open window being my bookmarks folder, and I found I’ve been hacked.
I open my bookmarks in a separate window and there is Marina’s hotforwords.com icon posted in the address bar AND at the top of the browser window. The hotforwords.com address is not selected inside the window, it shouldn’t appear, … nothing appeared until recently, and now her icon appears every time I start up the browser.
Only on startup of the browser. With a window already open and a non-hotforwords.com address, if I click the bookmarks tab it’s the same as always.
The hotforwords.com window is also immovable and fixed in position; I cannot move it though I can close it. Something happened. Actually, I cannot move any browser window that has a hotforword.com address, I cannot move it anywhere on the screen. It’s glued to the screen. I can close it. Hmmm …?
I know myself I had nothing to do with this. With today’s video entitled, Phoney, I imagine this post raises suspicion and credibility whether I’m simply making all this up. I’m not. What a coincidence.
If the source of this bloop with my browser is not of human origin, and I can only verify to myself and know for sure that I’m not responsible for this happening, maybe something supernatural, some hocus-pocus, perhaps? The gods are beginning to fiddle with the natural laws, … between Marina and I?
Browser windows unglued now, and they stay that way. Every time I start up the browser though, there it is … there she is with those glasses on. Two of ‘em, too!
MARINO4KA ,bonjour à toi! now i ‘m going to try to give you an example of a dangerous( for your wallets) fake game:the ill famed three boxes game: three (not too honest) people take place in a crowded place,ONE of them pretends to be the organizer of the game and once he kneels down places on the ground a piece of tissue, generally a table napkin with a marble and three boxes. At this point the other two accomplices pretend to be occasional players and begin to catch the crowds’ attention the organizer sets the marble under one of he boxes and startes to make it pass through one boxe to the other very quickly shouting aloud whether someone wants to challenge him: the purpose of the game turns out to be being able to find the location of the marble,the two accomplices challenge the organizer who everytimes he realizes to be the looser pays a sum of money to the two challengers:at this point the real cheat occurs: after that a huge crowd is formed around the players ,some unaware people,mainly tourists convinced to have the chance to win go to challenge the ”leader”,therefore it is only in this particular moment that the fraud begins. The marble is never found even if the organizer shows it many times to the astonished spectators most of the time the cheater manages to catch and hide the little marble in the palm of his hand so that no marble can be found under the boxes..so if you could lift all the three boxes you would realize that there is no marble under all of them so be aware and do not be tempted
Do I dare answer this, and hear the wrath of Marina? hummm. Oh what the heck!
Jigger. The word’s etymology is uncertain, although as in its non-nautical senses it seems connected with smallness, neatness, and often jerky motion. This suggest and association with the noun and verb indicating dancing. But the origin of ‘jig’ in this sense is equally obscure, since OF ‘gigue’, meaning a crude violin, was obsolete before ‘jig’ appeared. The modern French ‘gigue’, meaning the dance, seems to have been formed from the English ‘gig’.
In the Nautical sense of the word ‘jigger’ is a light tackle with one single and one double block, at best multiplying the power by four. Or a small sail set right aft of a sailboat. i.e. used as a mizen sail on a yawl or for the fourth mast in a five – or six-masted schooner.
I have heard of a trick of cutting the ends off of a one dollar bill
and taping on the ends from twenty dollar bills, at a quick glance
it could be mistaken for a twenty, (as for the twenty dollar bills,
cutting one end off does not make the bill worthless)
If yahoo users put your email address in their address books, I think they will let those emails go thru. Yahoo really sucks anyways. I use them for a spam account. I’ve been using Gmail for over a year now and I like it a lot. I even discontinued my .mac account. I might go for the new me.com from Apple. Sound a bit more useful than .mac.
jnaples, you’re yahoo… so my emails are getting delayed.. then ultimately ending up in your spam folder.. can you check and add me sot that they don’t keep going there?
Huh, you only comment on the comments that are commented on as replies to comments that you commented on that are not comments that are … oh forget it.. I give up!
LOL !! If I feed more to this, will it work like an internet-black-hole or
www-singularity?
(Earlier quote from Marina)
“Huh, you only comment on the comments that are commented on as replies to comments that you commented on that are not comments that are … oh forget it.. I give up!”
Just a bit more could have an atomic chain reaction!! (pfffbllt !!! lol !!)
To comment: I sure don’t know what you think you’re talking about.
Yahoo does these sort of things from time to time. Take yours now that you know it’s not the HFW-site.
Hello Marina,
I have always gotten replies from the HFW website no matter what for a long time, so it is not the HFW website.
The majority of the problems tend to be user’s email provider, or to say it another way; Sending emails is usually instant, however, getting emails is a major issue due to ISP filtering of spam and other email management.
For example, if you are using AT&T as your email provider, by default, they block certain emails. The same is true for AOL and other providers. Users need to be familiar with their web based email control panels. Even if you are using a POP3 email client with AT&T, the web based control panel will still affect some parts of your POP3 email.
Everyone that has issues, check your web bases control panels for settings related to spam, viruses and other filter settings. Contact your ISP to help you. Also, do check your spam and trash folders.
i work for a hotel supply company – we host our own e-mail…for a week or so we had problems because Bellsouth blocked our domain without warning…we couldn’t reply or send e-mails to bellsouth.net customers or vendors even though nothing had changed at our end…the solution was to write abuse_rbl@abuse-att.net and request removal from their blacklist…
Bellsouth doesn’t use spamcop or public blacklist servers – it compiles its own lists, and mistakes are plentyful…
so it may be that Marina will have to contact some e-mail providers to specifically request removal of her domain from their blacklist…
The good news: Hot For Words site posts
showing new lessons, are working on my
Yahoo.
The other news: when a reader responds
to my posted comment, I do not receive
an email to notify me of the response,
since the server changeout.
tested and verified
Looking forward to a fix, if this is a bug.
I have to figure a way for CoComments
to pull this duty – as it should, anyway.
Nope fphs1946, it comes from what I said in the video. It is a common misconception that it came from the French faux… maybe the French faux comes from the same origin! But I have not looked into that.
That is obviously a clip from an older vid. but I can only scratch my head as to which one. Usually the outtakes make me laugh, I just felt a little saddened at the little snipet. (not that there is anything wrong with that)
Dear Marina,
I’d rate your video five stars, and I’d rate that red dress a Ten! (You must own so many dresses, you have different ones every video!) I’d like to request a word you use frequently: “dear.” How did it become a term of endearment?
Hoping to remain your dear student, CM6.
Marina – I just wanted to thank you again for helping my son expand his vocabulary.He is learning more language than ever and enjoying your videos while learning and I am very grateful. Thank you also for that nice shout out to my article about you and thank you for putting in bloopers at the end of some videos. He is learning that it is okay not to be perfect all the time.
The most recent con I remember is when someone in a store yelled to my mother about a shoplifter being “over there” and she pointed. Then when my mother looked for the shoplifter, the woman grabbed my mother’s purse and ran. That was a con for sure! There was no other shoplifter. The woman was pretending to be helpful but that was phoney. She was dishonest but my mother learned a lesson about holding on tightly to her purse.
My pleasure! I am trying to do things to make the lessons even more fun.. I got a green screen… and as soon as I can figure out how to use it. I might put myself in all kinds of exotic locations related to the words
Green screen? kewl!
You could do the Gidget thang.
film yourself so it looks like
your balancing on a surf board
with the waves in background
(one way to get you into a bikini!)
Worked out well for Sally Fields!
Thats fantastic jcr! Marina really has the talent to get the guys attention to hopefully teach them something something. What the heck? Must be an echo in here? So anyway I’m also learning from a bunch of great guys here also. There are some very bright individuals that really keep this blog rolling. Without them I would have left months ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love Marina’s lessons, but the discussions afterwards really help expose the word more so it is better absorbed in the mind.
Care to throw some History into your English lessons?
During WWII The Americans refered to the English as Limeys and Tommies. Where’d these nicknames come from?
Marina, I do love the videos but is one every day is too much? Will you lose interest at this rapid pace?
We all know that hotforwords.com will lead to something bigger for you, be sure to keep up the quality/ content of your terrific little videos in the meantime. That way, when our wives find us watching your channel, we can say “Look! It’s educational! ”
Anna Kournikova became so popular because she was not only sexy, but very good at what she did (Tennis!) Eventually she turned into a cartoon of herself, just a sex symbol, nothing more. There are lots of sexy women on the web; you are special because you have both beauty AND brains. Don’t forget!
randyn, I’ll never lose interest… Anna Kournikova, the girl you reference was a good tennis player, but I don’t think she really had the desire to play like other tennis players, like Sharapova for example.
In order to be good at something, or rather, be the best, you have to LOVE what you do first of all.. and I bet the really good tennis players play EVERY SINGLE day. They don’t get bored.. and if they do.. or they find other things more excited (ie: Kournikova).. then their tennis game will falter as a result.
I have SO MANY more words to cover and I LOVE what I am doing! I will NEVER tire of this.. so there is no need to worry about that happening. And don’t worry… I will not start doing words just for the sake of doing a lesson.. I make sure that each lesson is at least interesting. I have 2,302,123 words to go! Must get back to work
Your focus and drive are truly remarkable. People who settle for mediocrity tend to get what they deserve. People who are never quite satisfied with their progress will excel in the long run. Thanks for another quinte-stellar lesson!
Thank you for your statement of your goal. I’ve been looking for the answer to my question I posed to you weeks or month ago and you have answered it well. You are a philologist and a teacher. Your goal is to teach word etymology to the masses and nothing more. Your here to stay. Thats fantastic news. I really admire people who find their place in the world. I have set my goal to teach people things maritime related. Its a job I can do from the comfort of my yacht. I can work at my own pace and I get back exactly what I put into it. Thats suits me just fine.
Keep up the great work you have been doing Marina. If their is anything you need just do what you have been doing, Asking…
Another shell game trick is the “three card monte” (as distinguished from the “full monte” ).
What about the pig-in-a-poke scam, which you talked about in a previous video?
There’s the badger game extortion scam, perpetrated on married men. The mark is deliberately coerced into a compromising position, a supposed affair for example, then threatened with public exposure of his acts unless blackmail money is paid.
The Melon Drop is a scam in which the scammer will intentionally bump into the mark and drop a package containing glass that has already been broken. He will claim that the contents were broken by the clumsiness of the mark, and demand money to replace them.
The glim-dropper requires several accomplices, one of whom must be a one-eyed man. One grifter goes into a store and pretends he has lost his glass eye. Everyone looks around, but the eye can’t be found. He declares that he will pay a thousand-dollar reward for the return of his eye, leaving contact information. The next day, an accomplice enters the store and pretends to find the eye. The storekeeper (the intended griftee), thinking of the reward, offers to take it and return it to its owner. The finder insists he will return it himself, and demands the owner’s address. Thinking he will lose all chance of the reward, the storekeeper offers a hundred dollars for the eye. The finder bargains him up to $250, and departs. The one-eyed man, of course, can not be found and does not return.
So many posting in one day.
And on a holiday no less.
Your a workaholic but in your case spelt wordaholic.
How about explaining the origin of “Workaholic” with emphasis on the aholic portion.
Or “Chill” being to relax.
Also we haven’t seen the pups lately.
And shame on them that called you a phoney.
No one would be able to put on an afront concerning philology unless they were the genuine and dedicated real thing.
(Suggest you lose the yellow backdrop. Hey our houses are messy too, cause we are spending all our time waiting on new videos of you)
Direct relation to the word “phoney”, Marina, class.
Lex and Terry
perform a radio “bit” where they have digital recordings of a person’s
voice in common responses. For example: “Hello”, “No, I don’t think so”, “What’s going on?”, all stored in a computer so, this can be
massive!
Here is where it pays to be a professional or at least allow the
person in on the joke. Lex & Terry would call up 1-900-numbers
with, for instance, Homer Simpson’s voice or Dr. Phil talking to
a phone service. It would be no one of consequence.
Alternately,
I had a best friend (call by initials JK back in New York). JK was
busy so much with college that he used this idea with his own voice
answering phone by computer. I witnessed how detailed he made it
and was impressed that it would work. One of his lady friends called
trying to make plans and entirely by computer did he respond !!
Clever. Darkly clever.
When days later, I started meeting up with friend after friend of his,
who would say, “I don’t know why you hang out with that jerk”, it
still didn’t hit me.
I tried calling to set up a plan for doing things and got a no-show.
Phoney – direct relation. I wouldn’t say this was the first instance in
time that such deceptions were possible. But, one may postulate.
Anyone trying to perform the prank, beware. Fast results occur.
Bring friends into the joke *before* they hang up.
My 87 year old grandfather always says, “this is the phoniest weather I have ever seen”. He is talking about the weather we have here in Atlantic canada. It changes frequently.
My father told me that he used to play a confidence trick when he was a little boy.
He would go down to the local corner store with a ball of string.
He’d go up to someone standing looking in the window and tell them he was measuring up the store for the owner, and ask them to hold one end of the string for him.
Then he’d go round the corner and do the same to another window-shopper, before ducking under the string into the store and out the back entrance.
He and his brothers would then watch from across the street, to see how long it took the two stooges to figure out they’d been had.
melikadothechacha, are you not getting notified of this reply? I didn’t turn that feature off and I am getting email notifications! You are not? Are they suddenly in your spam folder? I need to know in order to fix this!
– Actually, this replies to Marina’s technical question:
Is melik… getting his notifications.
I signed up for it and it only worked once. To the side but related:
My browser links the RSS feed (unsure of what that totally includes)
but when you revise your lessons … two hours late for an update.
Does that help describe anything going wrong?
I used to lock my keys into my car often for some reason ( guess I missed my pocket). I was able to find someone who could break into my car so I could get my keys out. I was able to do this often. Then I thought , Hey I could turn anybody into a car thief. Why break into a car myself when I can engineer someone into doing it for me! Then many moons later I seen something on TV of that same thing. People would help you break into a car and NEVER ask for any ID! Crazy hu?
In my computer hacking days I used to do whats called Social Engineering. What we (other hackers) would do is call up an employee on the phone and pose as company techs trying to fix the computer systems. We could talk the person into giving use a log in name and password. Over time we where thinking we just could all up anybody in the company and just say “Hello, Im friendly neighborhood computer hacker. Could you help me out and give me your log in and password?”
Yes I used to do a bit of computer hacking. I even got my code name from being a teachers pet. I was her little computer wizard. Oh and she was teaching reading, writing and English for 7th graders. She asked me to find a book to read. All she had was boring books. So I picked up a Dictionary and read that. Funny, I remember actually enjoying that.
Ah Unomi ….
These Russian gals are quite crafty. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out – ZING – the rug comes out from under your feet because they teach you something new & it knocks you over. The axioms you hold true …. another person, another point of view.
(Flush my poetry, will ya? Thanks!)
You have nuts? Quote
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint Exupery …do you T.A.’s pick the HOTforWords quotes?
Hm, she has to get a 3rd hand and a 2nd head then she holds more variants to “move”.
Its the same with every Film or show you watch there always comes the day where it repeats more or less, but thats not the point why you should be watching it. It´s for the knowledge, and some nice kiss( ) because you listened closely will do fine. ( Doh, lazy guy doesn´t use the English Grammer Software , but hopefully you can read it ! )………… Teacher teacher where is the next video ?
Oh. so i was half right?
I knew you were light
at least one, didn’t
know it would be both!
My mistake.
I understand what you wrote
better, now, and all gender
related issues aside;
let me state clearly
that over time you will
notice syntax stability
and diversity in her format
Your choice of the word
“dull” drew my attention.
Just pickin’ a bone, not a fight!
You should get a Gravatar
so we can see your smiling
face!
Now I am caught up. Answer: cups and balls(?). Three card Monty, Gypsies (no offense) play any game to con a homeowner from money, and what ever that game is called when a novice street drug buyer purchases a dime bag ($10.00) of cocaine, but gets laundry detergent or baking soda to clean his nose. PS no trouble what so ever with this supercharged website, although I have to ask myself, why am I spending time with answers to what are words for a toilet?
Hi there HotForWords, I just registered at Your web site and would like to know the origin of word ‘polish’ as ‘to polish’, did it come as an adjective from Poland or not (as I am polish:))
That’s awesome. I’ve actually been there. I have pictures near the Hell-Gods Expedition building. I think “Gods Expedition” means something like “goods transportation.”
Another milestone video! Bravo!
Hope you didn’t fall on anything
important*.. at the end, there..uhm
You have made us wait a long
time to see how FINE you look
wearing that red dress.
Yes indeed.. mighty fine.
*Kobe!
Did you catch any pyro?
Did a gig for Zambelli tonite
Did coordination for one of
two barges, each laden with
4000 lbs of rockets and
mortars. Old style, atom bursts,
Saturn bursts – colorfull stuff.
We shot six, 1000 feet high,
1000 feet spread – Chrysanthimums
(sorry if not sic -wore out)
they go for $1G apiece!
all but 2 mortars popped,
we had rain half an hour
before lift off, talk about
sponsor stress – Oy!
It went good, they got
happy, again.
What was the homework?
con games? bag tricks?
two tens for a five?
All that comes to mind is
the Kansas City shuffle,
but you need a dead body
(and Bruce Willis & Josh Hartnet
i’m glad you got a day
to just hang out – recharge.
Don’t know how many more
lessons are still in the can!
Time to batch out some more!
Love to see you wear red – uh huh!
Sounds like a huge show! Down here in St Pete, Florida – we had
a show at the pier and one across county where some friends at
98Rock ran a show.
4000 lbs?! I have no idea how long that can last but it sure sounds
like about a half an hour. We had cool effects of shapes in our blasts.
I can surmise how they get the effect yet, it is still thrilling to see
an “X” shaped mark in the sky or rings open up like some time vortex
is imminently happening.
… Did they? or was that the Schmirnoff-Richter syndrome at the end?
there was a pod setup on the shore battery
for the finale – 20 minutes of non-stop
concussion, “pants rippers”
Woke up to find undetonated mortar
round in the yard! one of those jobs that
makes all the swimmers in the sky.
with the sequencing – the show took
an hour.
Update: Haven’t figured out how to upload a picture I have scanned
to the HFW-web-site. For the Fourth of July topic it might have been
to your liking.
Entitled: Polish Rocket Testing Team (I *AM* your token Polish fellow)
At my job we refurbish Javelin anti-tank rocket components and
while the boss was on vacation one week ….
…. I’m there in from of the Fire-retardent chemical cabinet holding a
soda can atop my head while my lead man is shouldering the Javelin
tube – leveling it just so. Sorry I couldn’t get you the physical picture.
But, Melika, class, if you’re ever in St Pete, Florida – they know me
at the Pinellas Park Winghouse. Gladly show you my work!
I know another term for scam or cheating-how about the New England Patriots? I don’t hate them but there were a lot of rumors about the Patriots being cheaters stealing other teams plays behind they’re backs.
Hi my name is Giz a.k.a GizzyGiz21. If you ever shout me out on one of your videos can you make sure you spell my name with two capital Gs. Like (GizzyGiz21). Do you know were the word “Friend” came from ?
Use to be five minutes a day!
…then 20 minutes, then 2 hours…
HotForwords is part of my wake
up routine – coffee and Marina!
gets my eyes buggin’ early
Might it have something to do with the French word “faux” meaning false?
The fawney-rig sounds a lot like the Nigerain 403 (or some similar number) scam… where you get an email from a supposed long lost relative or buisiness man in big financial trouble saying that you can have a huge amount of money…. if you donate a thousand dollars or so for transferring the money.
I love your love of words
But I think you’ve jumped the gun with this one. Faux is the more likely precursor of phoney. ‘That’s terribly faux’ (as people indeed used to say) becomes ‘that’s terribly phoney’. The fawney-rig idea is colourful and memorable but it’s folk etymology and unlikely. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense that a cant word (criminal slang) would be widely known. Cant is meant to be code. It also doesn’t make sense that it would reappear in a new spelling in a new country over a century later with nothing in between. There’s no occurrence of fawney being used to mean fake in general, it only describes this type of fraud in a very limited setting. All the references to this etymology in dictionaries are prefaced with ‘possibly’. Generally if the etymology involves an entertaining story, someone’s just made it up. Faux on the other hand does simply mean fake.
HAHAHA Marina said fanny… tee-hee
Random lesson—i thought a person that talks to much on a telephone was a phoney?
A phoney thing happened on the way to the phorum…..
hi
hi back…back with a hi
dean, john b. good. 
Could you wear that outfit when you make me teacher’s pet?
You’re not phoney Marina, not even close…
Guess what, this con is still played in Paris. Woman walks by and pretends to find a gold ring in the street, except that she is Seventh Day Adventist & doesn’t really know if it’s gold & doesn’t want it but what luck & share the luck by giving her something for the ring…
Ruse; Scam.
Great joke, Marina. Being self-ironical is something only great personalities have. Congratulations.
I thought for sure the phoney example was not the bag – before the pan and zoom it’s not visible, but Marina’s breasts are front and center. At least you can’t fake intelligence.
Wow, thanks for explaining that. I’m sure no one would have gotten the joke if you hadn’t spelled it out for us. It’s good that there are people like you to help weed out subtlety.
poor attitude
testing my gravitar
man i’ve done everything and it still doesen’t work
TongueTwislers, the email address that you use for this HFW site and the gravatar site have to be exactly the same.
If you are using the same email, then make sure you activate the image that you wish to use. I think you click on the image in your image list, then you’ll get a confirmation dialog. Once confirmed, it can take a few minutes for the gravatar to show up.
Bait & Switch.
You mean like when women have phoney blond hair and phoney big breasts?
Или американский претендовать быть русским снайпер??
I can only speak on what I know, and US guys in the West still seem to be churning ‘em out as cute as buttons.
Don’t you mean as cute as Buttons?
If I went through ninety percent of every website I’ve ticked to, I sometimes wonder what I’d find.
I just don’t have time.
And Bob, between me and you, what I’ll need in the future is something like Marina to talk to the world about computer cognition with on http://www.HotForMergatroid.us. I’m taking over …, Her, and others, a team, we’re gonna Rock Tradition, and the very foundations of the world.
If I had the money of a bill gates, we’d've already been setting up scripts and production and have the show on the road.
Imagine Marina saying, “… no, sorry mergatroidal. I have other goals and plans in life.”
“Like what?”
“…, and what about real fame and fortune, Marina?”
Ha!
I can’t really imagine the conversation progressing too far and I don’t get what I want. 
(I’m sittin’ and waitin’ for this freakin’ gold mine to start rollin’ thunder …)
Oops! Rock Tradition was supposed to link to something. Tick Coming Soon …
I need a full time editor to go over my posts before submitting them.
Change the second to the last post, third paragraph to, … and Bob, between you and I,
and the fifth paragraph would read better if I wrote instead, … imagine Marina writing (not saying) in response to this post, “… no, sorry mergatroidal. I have other plans and goals in life.”
“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.” – Voltaire 1694-1778
Thats just hilarious! I wonder why that is?
As you marina have been like a super hero ….opening my mind to Words you Just take for GRANTED ……..there is that word again….Granted …….good one as well……ooxooxoxox
I feel the same way as you do Mellon-g37.
Save the Teacher; Save the World.
Hey Marina what state do u live in cuz it says its 2 in the afternoon there but its 11 at night here
Hi, if you make me your teacher’s pet, can I appear in a video with you?
love ya honey!!! i was wondering the origin of the “xoxo” stuff, and what does it mean
Love ya!
I would like to known the origin of the word/phrase ‘down-pat’
Thanks a million.
hi hfw…..hope u be fine …i havnt had teacher like u….any wa thanks for sharing information….my question is ,,,newyear celebration( christmas) …who made it?..and where comes from?….
If you haven’t seen Orson Welles’ film “For for Fake.” It’s a very smart and funny movie, and it’s is not well-know at all. A forgotten gem.
On the issue of being phoney in general, a philosophical question: isn’t it part of being human to be fake, or at least a little fake.
I mean, don’t we all have a certain idea of who we are (or would like to be) and we play that role–better or worse? Our image of ourselves is pretty much a fabrication whether we admit it or not. If you are teacher, you play a role. If you’re a business person, it’s a role, etc, etc.. If you’re “hot,” it’s a role. You could be beautiful and not be hot and vice-versa–up to a point of course.
In celebration of the new law in California where you can’t… Read the rest » wht does this mean can’t read the rst, these are videos how do you read them unless your talking about reading body language?
where dose the word “Sorry” come from?
I’m new to the site but I gotta say it’s great. I’ve got way too many words I’m curious about but for now how about … acquire or ludicrous? Thanks, Duane
PS I had no idea were Phoney came from. Pretty cool.
Marina Orlova ~Ingenue~
Hi, all the replies from hotforwords.com threads are in my spam folder.
vi
Yeah.. that totally sucks victor immature! I don’t know why all my emails go to people’s spam folders! Arrgghh!
Did you add a spam link in your eMails??
Not to mine, Marina. They all go right to my inbox where they are supposed to.
Hello Marina,
Over the years, ISPs have been caught in catch 22 in trying to deal with spam. What most ISPs have done is to make the default email spam settings very aggressive whereby the majority of emails go to spam.
For example, an innocent word such as “hot” could be flagged as spam. The ISPs have put the onus on the user to tweak their spam settings in their web based control that works for them.
Possible Recommendation:
Could you change your “HELP” menu at the top to “HELP / FAQ”.
Then, add a sentence or two about email settings.
Example:
In order to receive emails from HotForWords, make sure that you have checked your email spam and filter settings to allow emails from my domain HotForWords.com.
If you did not receive an expected email from HotForWords, check your spam folder and make the appropriate adjustments in your email settings. Contact your ISP if you need assistance with your email control panel settings.
Humbly Yours, K.
usually, adding an e-mail address to the contact list for an e-mail client obviates spam filtering on that address, so try adding blogreg-do-not-reply-11@hotforwords.com to your contacts and see if that helps…
also, my employer is notorious for not paying much attention when moving e-mails around and adds friends to his “blocked senders” list, so you might check there, too…
the word minigun who made it and where did it come from thank you andy gibson
Hello.
I’ve question about adding -ish at the end of some words (ex. short person saying ” I’m tall -ish”). I’ve heard it few times already and becouse english isn’t my first language I was wondering what does it mean and what is it origin.
And becouse I moved to England some time ago I was wondering about another thing: why American “center” is British “centre” (there was some other word with er->re swithed but I can’t remember it right now).
I’ll be glad if somebody could help me with that.
Cheers
well, everyone knows Brits colour their humour in the centre…
’cause they can’t spell…
as for “-ish,” people use it when they can’t think of the correct term but want to make some sort of comparison to a tern others would know…or perhaps to avoid a “politicaly-incorrect” term…
like comparing, as you say, a “shortish” person to a taller one…”shortish” deflects the supposed insult when a person is “height-challenged”…
oh, and btw, i’m not baldish…i’m just plain bald…
It.s a generous use of the suffix (word ending) -ish, extending its use to more words.
I still havn’t figured out the end of the video. Was it another blooper or were you still hung over from the other video. Tell us the secret of the closeup of the hand bag.
capman911, the end it an outtake from a video I shot probably 6 months ago.. the significance of the bag is that it is phoney.. a fake!
let’s be PC and call it a “knock-off”…
hanging on a knock-out, of course…
I notice no one commented on Marina golden bag. Oh thats right you were looking at something else. So is that real gold? Maybe is gold plated?Might be! Who knows? Im more interested in what in the bag! How does it go?… You can learn a lot about a woman just by the contents of her bag?
I wonder if she meant the gold belt was a phony. Or maybe the bag was not a Gucci. I don’t know. I know thats what they are there for but I hate to talke to a womans upper frontLes and not to her face.
Yea I have that same problem when talking to women. I know it rude to look below her face, but my Neanderthals instinct just overwhelms me
. I wish their was a switch to turn it off. Its like holding your breath. Ya I can do it for a minute or two but its killing me!!!!! 
I’m too busy trying to keep up with the comments. I wrote two articles today but tried to read the comments in between and it was really hard. This board flies. I didn’t know guys (and some women but it seems to be mostly guys ) could be so chatty
I guess if the topic is the right topic, they can!
Mrs JCR we are just as gossipy as ladies are when we are in a group.
We have a few ladies who comment, but we could welcome more. It makes for intersting comments and conversation. 
Mike
Yea I cluck like a chicken here. I too have the same problem. I have many projects im working on and I take too many breaks to read the comments. Im getting the flow down now. I normally just respond to the emailed replies to my comments. When Im done for the day I’ll go back and reply to some comments. Even on ones that are a few days old.
Hey JCR, Go to gravatar.com and make yourself an avatar. It will help you find your comments faster visually. As you scroll down if you see any comment below yours then you can do a quick reply and move on. Its a speed trick I used to whip through the blog.
All of my responses are reasoned and restrained, not given to fancy or felonious dribble. Indeed, I am the epitome of forthrightiousness & verisimilitude.
Oh, and pigs do fly!!!…
You…you mean….you aren’t a Captain named Jack?!
Oops, that reply was to Captain Jack but then anuddermale replied before my reply showed up and…I’m officially confused.
lol…happens, jcr…
and i should’ve used “drivel”…but since i drool ’round Marina, “dribble” will do…
Well I see it easy to confuse you Jcr. All one has to do is turn sideways and that interferes with your radar and one becomes invisible…
- Something Robin Williams said in one of his stand up routines.
What do you mean I’m not a Captain named Jack? Im Jack Sparrow! Haven’t you seen me in the movies? I’ve been in 2 movies, 1 TV show, one rock video. Cher – If I Could Turn Back Time
The ship is the USS Missouri BB-63 in the now defunct Long Beach Naval station. You can’t see me because Im way in the back. heheh The Might Mo was my home for 4 years. She is still my true love after all these years. I’m getting teary eyed just watching the video. And all she is.. is a boat made out of metal. Hum. Weird…
If anyone wants to run a speed test on their computer here is the site I use.
http://tech.msn.com/speedtest.aspx
Mine comes back at 10 mega bits per second.
Thats just fake Capman. Not a true speed indicator. It showed me a hight speed than my service provider can put out for the type of service I have. I know I don’t get 3mbps down. Im lucky to get 1.2mbps. My service is rated at 1.5mbps.
Try this one, your results should be a bit more accurate.
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1
Here is my test results.
http://www.dslreports.com/testhistory/429403/6fad7
Yours did show a different speed than mine. Thanks
i get 1579 Kb/s download, 206 Kb/s upload…slightly HIGHER than i got on another site…
oh, and the other site is offering 15.0 Mb/s dsl service…
that’s not a typo…the site says it’s adsl is 15 Mb/s…
only $150/month…
See that sucks. When you can get 60Mb/s for $40 a month in South Korea. Other countries it will cost you $60. The telcos will continue to rip us off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vohlSfFRZ_s…………………….
Ok what am I suppose to be looking at
This is what i use: http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/
Thanks
which is the site i used first – gave me 1280 Kb/s…
All my test where done in Seattle/Kirkland, Wa to the servers in San Francisco, Ca. Tests where preformed on Sunday morning at 0223 hours and finished at 0234 hours.
Marina’s link to speakeasy website in (San Francisco CA):
Download Speed: 1648 kbps (206 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 225 kbps (28.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
DSL Reports/ Broadband Reports Site:
Megapath (San Francisco CA)
1365 Kbps 264 Kbps
DSL Reports/ Broadband Reports Site:
Speakeasy (Palo Alto CA)
1390 Kbps 259 Kbps
Speedtest. Net:
Speedtest.net (San Francisco CA)
1606 Kbps 244 Kbps
MSN/cNET.com site:
2574.1 kbps No upload speeds listed
My wireless provider is Clearwire. I get 1.5Mbps down and 256kbps upload. Now thats max alloted speeds. I should see lower speed for over head from the computers talking to each other.
MSN was the most inaccurate test out there. 2.5Mbps, wow I wish!
Whats interesting is the speakeasy servers on their own server differ from the DLS Reports test servers. 1.6mbps vs 1.3 mbps. download.
Many people use Speedtest.net. The also show me over 1.5
Of all the tools I have used DSL Reports/ Broadband Reports to be the most accurate of the bunch. I have been with them for 7 years.
Wow! Has it been that long? – “Joined: 2001-07-13 (7th year!)”
Thats like 5 computers ago..
Hi- ya capman, yeah I’m feeling chatty tonight. Under captainjacks’ test, my pc is at 5030 Kb/s for download, and 940 Kb/s for uploads. Back to words topic: I’ve been saving a bundle on gas when I did a double conversion on my car, first with Magneto Hydrodynamic Technology ,and then H20 burner
Water Car
I would like to suggest a word horticulture. Thanks
latin, Mike (i’m Tom or Annudder, btw), hortus = garden; colere=tend…but as Dorothy Parker once said:
“You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.“
Good one. I’ll have to remember that one
Do you know how to make a hormone. Use the hind lick manuver. 
and here i always heard the answer was, “don’t pay her.”…
Tom & Mike, you guys crack me up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vohlSfFRZ_s
well, that’s at least the third time i’ve seen that link posted to this thread…
do you have a point with it? or are we supposed to understand that your posts are well-rounded?…
ur hot……oh and for the word i would like to know “slut” thx
from Wikipedia:
oh, and…’er…you have a tendency to state the obvious…
Tnks Tom, I was wondering about that word also. I just never bothered to look it up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vohlSfFRZ_s…
Hello Marina,
I would like to know the origin of the word ‘alcohol’,
is it true that it has an arabic origin ?
Thank you.
Well, if you visit to Busch Garden in Tampa, Florida – on one of their exhibits for Tutankhamun claims that beer was thought to first be brewed by the Egyptians. It was one of the many things to enjoy in the Edge of Africa tour.
Another was the goddess Hathor. She guarded Tut’s tomb and was embodied to be as a cow, steer or bovine. Modern day culture does not recognize various Egyptian deities however, it it rumoured that
upon many modern holidays we prepare a bonfire to the cow-god
in her honor. Check out musical reference – GREEN JELLY, Obey the Cowgod!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vohlSfFRZ_s
Gummy bear?! …. @#$% – that’s not metal, dude.
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?fr=ybr_vzn&p=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm1Z-mjru_A&NR=1
can you give me the origin of the word nincompoop? thanks
Can you give me the origin of the word Encyclopedia? thanks!
Regarding the HFW increased speed and not to take away from BoArgMir’s comment below, here is some info most might not know.
I have never had a speed issue with the HFW website. I am in Calif on a 3 Mb/sec DSL connection and the server is in Fla.
If you are on dialup or a slow DSL, then you would see an improvement in the new HFW server.
Many of you are possibly on a deficient DSL connection. Yes, many of you are getting screwed and ISP’s are dunces and thieves.
Also, many of you who think you have DSL, are actually on 1/4 DSL or 1/2 DSL. Even if you have purchased a fast DSL connection, if you haven’t done the various tests, you may be getting cheated, on purpose or ISP incompetence.
Also, the US is in the slow lane of DSL throughput. Most of Europe and other locations have on average much faster DSL connections.
I am in Florida (who does the server? are these people I may already know? Sun Systems, maybe?)
I have a wireless 54 mb/sec connection to a hi-speed server.
actual draw is about 10%, or 6 mb/sec. I saw the lags creep in over a period of time, and a dramatic improvement after the transition to the new server. Part of the dilemna is the traffic during holidays makes for increased wait states, both site connecting and internal connectivity.
You can get T1 or T3 connections here in the states, just like Europe, but you will pay a premium price for it, again, just like Europe!
having dial up or slow internet speed doesn’t help, as the slow
downs can lead to “time outs”, and you can’t get on at all during some holidays. the traffic to HotForWords has been building linearly and an upgrade was probably past due! Add the quantum traffic increase from the holidays and it’s a disaster. Not good to lose your site during the boom periods, especially when the number of hits are the criteria for getting rated. The ISP issue you mention is more about bandwidth being robbed by tracking programs. These are silently downloaded during a program installation, so, run the scans, dump the offending cookies, update your cookies exception list to block future attempts to replant them, clean your tracks – and you should be good.
One culprit is Divx always claiming to update their program., only to replant cookies. Identify and skip these upgrades where possible.
Thanks for your input – you brought some attention to issues that get overlooked.
I traced it to http://www.hostdime.com/ in Orlando, Fl.
Is this only a PC problem? I’m hoping so. I mean, compared to a Mac. We have both types of computers so I figure if it happens only on one, I can always use the other when visiting this site. But so far, no problems.
jcr, I use a Mac.
testing for a reply
Marina called it!
50 emails all went to spam!
including cocomment stuff
go figger!
hmmm… test went to spam, too!
ok – cleared out spam, retest!
pesky little bug!
try again!
(still posted to spam)
and another one…
(turned off Yahoo
suspected spam filter)
mel, add blogreg-do-not-reply-11@hotforwords.com as a Contact in your Yahoo – that should fix it…
ok- put in that fix
crossin’ my fingers
“and the monkey flips the switch”
- Lost in Space
no joy – hey is my leg getting longer?
Also don’t forget that the page is not full loaded until all external links are downloaded. So for services like digg.com, addthis.com, gravitar.com, cocoment.com, feedburner.com,( did I miss any?) have to load before you can really do anything. Gravitar works fine if you only have like 30 or so comments but it really gets bogged down at 300 comments. CoComments is a big issue. I ping coco at over 199 ms. to about 375 and 516 ms. I ping HFW I get 99 ms. So coco is slow. Gravtar is about 70ms to 500ms. digg is at 47ms, and addthis is at 100ms.
So you have to add up all the other sites that are apart of the equation of the true speeds we are getting from HFW.
So true Jack the more a page has to load the slower it will make it. We sit here all day commenting and wonder why the page is so slow to reload. We are the ones adding to the problem. But isn’t it fun
“The Ivory Tower” at my work when we talk about the bosses that make all the stupid decisions like they are the rulers and we workers are just the lowly peasants, we say that they work in the ivory tower. Hmmm, ivory tower. We know the meaning when we use the term but what did it originally mean? Is there an actual ivory tower that kings and queens used to live in? Where did the term come from?
thanks Hot For Words,
your student – Darren “the dogfarmer”
I’ve worked for P&G (makers of Ivory soap)
in the past and I always thought that was where
the phrase originated! The building their
administration and executive departments,
located in Cincinnati, were in the Ivory Tower
building downtown.for years. This could all
be secondary to the actual coining of the
phrase, though – the origin could involve
elephants and India and God only knows.
Marina could investigate and make a game
of this one, for sure!
Good request!
not faux? rats!
By the way,
This webpage is going much faster now. Thanks Marina for doing that for us. It was getting frustrating there for a while, but is now much better.
BoArgMir
Miss M. have you heard from Jay the seven millon dollar man lately to see how he is doing?
capman911, im sure he’s been rubbing all over that little fertile turtle.
i checked the contest website yesterday & the results still weren’t posted, so i joined & e-mailed support to find out what-the-flip was taking so dang long…
Thanks pals for the reply. He seems like a very nice man. It’s a shame for somehting like that to happen to him or anyone.
I am Not your pal.
Ok, then forget it then.
you are a hard nut to crack, stokes…
no one was busting your chops, but you seem to enjoy busting others’…
oh, and there is no “still photo” in the aquarium vid…
nevermind “junior”
he’s still trying to figure out
what all the funny keys with
letters on ‘em mean.
sigh – another dry well?
Yassir
I asked that same question weeks ago. Still no news..
I always thought the word was spelled without the e. As in Phony.
Thanks for the spelling lesson, too.
BoArgMir
Hi BoArgMir, it can be spelled either way as per Merrium Webster’s Dictionary.
Main Entry: 1pho·ny
Variant(s): also pho·ney
Dear Marina,
Do you know the origin of this word : Bug ? There so much bugs in this strange world !
what about word emvrio ?
I’m on an Apple computer riding Tiger, and I opened up my web browser, the default open window being my bookmarks folder, and I found I’ve been hacked.
Oh, … so funny I almost forgot to laugh …!!
Mergatroidal I have never seen a screen of a Mac what do I need to look for on your site to know the difference?
I have a Mac and I didn’t see what he was talking about either.
I open my bookmarks in a separate window and there is Marina’s hotforwords.com icon posted in the address bar AND at the top of the browser window. The hotforwords.com address is not selected inside the window, it shouldn’t appear, … nothing appeared until recently, and now her icon appears every time I start up the browser.
Only on startup of the browser. With a window already open and a non-hotforwords.com address, if I click the bookmarks tab it’s the same as always.
The hotforwords.com window is also immovable and fixed in position; I cannot move it though I can close it. Something happened. Actually, I cannot move any browser window that has a hotforword.com address, I cannot move it anywhere on the screen. It’s glued to the screen. I can close it. Hmmm …?
I know myself I had nothing to do with this. With today’s video entitled, Phoney, I imagine this post raises suspicion and credibility whether I’m simply making all this up. I’m not. What a coincidence.
If the source of this bloop with my browser is not of human origin, and I can only verify to myself and know for sure that I’m not responsible for this happening, maybe something supernatural, some hocus-pocus, perhaps? The gods are beginning to fiddle with the natural laws, … between Marina and I?
How cool is that?
Wow I see what you mean
Browser windows unglued now, and they stay that way. Every time I start up the browser though, there it is … there she is with those glasses on. Two of ‘em, too!
whats the orgin of the word broad
MARINO4KA ,bonjour à toi!
now i ‘m going to try to give you an example of a dangerous( for your wallets) fake game:the ill famed three boxes game: three (not too honest) people take place in a crowded place,ONE of them pretends to be the organizer of the game and once he kneels down places on the ground a piece of tissue, generally a table napkin with a marble and three boxes. At this point the other two accomplices pretend to be occasional players and begin to catch the crowds’ attention 
the organizer sets the marble under one of he boxes and startes to make it pass through one boxe to the other very quickly shouting aloud whether someone wants to challenge him: the purpose of the game turns out to be being able to find the location of the marble,the two accomplices challenge the organizer who everytimes he realizes to be the looser pays a sum of money to the two challengers:at this point the real cheat occurs: after that a huge crowd is formed around the players ,some unaware people,mainly tourists convinced to have the chance to win go to challenge the ”leader”,therefore it is only in this particular moment that the fraud begins. The marble is never found even if the organizer shows it many times to the astonished spectators 
most of the time the cheater manages to catch and hide the little marble in the palm of his hand so that no marble can be found under the boxes..so if you could lift all the three boxes you would realize that there is no marble under all of them 
so be aware and do not be tempted 
hey girlie! hope you had a nice holiday. i have a word request for you…how about “jigger”….lets see what you come up with for that one!!!
thanks!
I’ll have a jigger of Navy Rum in anticipation of Captain Jack chiming in on this.
will you do a jig after tossin’ back aj igger or three?
and
???…i got slapped by my teacher when i said that to ‘er…
and she was dang hot, too…
Jiggers! the cops!
put away the rum quick!
Do I dare answer this, and hear the wrath of Marina? hummm. Oh what the heck!
Jigger. The word’s etymology is uncertain, although as in its non-nautical senses it seems connected with smallness, neatness, and often jerky motion. This suggest and association with the noun and verb indicating dancing. But the origin of ‘jig’ in this sense is equally obscure, since OF ‘gigue’, meaning a crude violin, was obsolete before ‘jig’ appeared. The modern French ‘gigue’, meaning the dance, seems to have been formed from the English ‘gig’.
In the Nautical sense of the word ‘jigger’ is a light tackle with one single and one double block, at best multiplying the power by four. Or a small sail set right aft of a sailboat. i.e. used as a mizen sail on a yawl or for the fourth mast in a five – or six-masted schooner.
First attested as a nautical tackle in 1726.
I have heard of a trick of cutting the ends off of a one dollar bill
and taping on the ends from twenty dollar bills, at a quick glance
it could be mistaken for a twenty, (as for the twenty dollar bills,
cutting one end off does not make the bill worthless)
and five BIG stars
No tayljim, only 1 star in this solar system.
Wow! you willl have a Brazillian lookers soon. How chill, I mean cool. Chief
I’d like to know where the word SHILL came from…”one who acts as a decoy”
yay! finally someone agrees with me!…i asked for “shill” on the Whitesmoke page…
sometimes having more ‘n one ask for the same word helps, so i wish us luck, pagedoll…
Ok I’ll will help you also, Marina how about the word shill?
Hi Marina. I don’t know if it works, because no one has ever responded to me…
…Check it now.
Oh I got it. Thank you, pagedoll!!
felicity, just responding as well
Didn’t want you to feel left out!
OMG! Thank you, Marina. I finally got a reply from you! I almost cry from happiness.
Deep love from Japan xxxx
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Felicity+of+Rome
“Marina has a heart of gold.”…Rule “and i’m gettin’ old” in The Marina Sychophant Handbook…
welcome, felicity…
annuddermale thanks for the NY video. I had forgotten about that one.
I have his live version of that song.
Hey you this vids for you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8NdDEcoYa4
annuddermale that is.
lol…yes, stokes…and Neil Young…
annuddermale just a hint but look at the still photo at the opening of this video
or should i say at the middle of this video.
tanks a lot, stokes…
Now we can’t have one of our own feeling left out felicity. Nice to meet you
Mike
Glad to see someone diluting the testosterone in here, Felicity.
I hope this is not offensive.
lol…now if we could get Felicity to verify that the characters actually say what the site purports…
i know there are a lot of people with tats of Chinese symbols that have been
pisseddisappointed to learn that what they thought they had permanently embroidered on their body wasn’t at all what they really had…Lunch time Bob
Good point Tim. Its a typical example of sheeple not doing any research on what people tell them as to be.
Hi Marina,
I would like to know the origin of the word
Cesarean
thanks
Are you guys getting emails when people RESPOND TO YOUR COMMENTS??? Or does that no longer work for you?
Please let me know.. as that’s a very important part of my website.
Thanks!
Marina
None. the systems worked once when I signed up / now, nothing.
Only keeping vigil on the comments is keeping us up to date.
Verizon/yahoo if you needed that …
Figured it out.. Yahoo is blocking emails from my website. Bummer.
i doubt it…i’m on yahoo and they come through – got your notice today…
Something just worked albeit there was no email “ding” to notify about your comment. I’m happy – you happy?
If yahoo users put your email address in their address books, I think they will let those emails go thru. Yahoo really sucks anyways. I use them for a spam account. I’ve been using Gmail for over a year now and I like it a lot. I even discontinued my .mac account. I might go for the new me.com from Apple. Sound a bit more useful than .mac.
I got it last time.
Yes I am. But none of them are from you, so I don’ think it working right!…HA!
check swing
Yep, it worked for me.
I’m still getting
iter… them.I’m not getting any emails…That’s ok thought, I check your site often!!
jnaples, you’re yahoo… so my emails are getting delayed.. then ultimately ending up in your spam folder.. can you check and add me sot that they don’t keep going there?
Marina no need to shout. I only respond to the comments to my comments when its relevant to the comment I posted.
Huh, you only comment on the comments that are commented on as replies to comments that you commented on that are not comments that are … oh forget it.. I give up!
I know you believe you understand what you think she said but I’m not sure you realise that what you heard is not what she meant.
Yes Bob thats exactly what she means
Thanks for sharing that, Garth.
yes…and as i said above, i’m on Yahoo and got notification of your comment this morning…
and i’ll test it again…
i dunno…it took all of maybe two seconds after i posted to get the notification…is that a delay?…
stokesjr, whom i usually don’t understand, was just referencing your use of ALL CAPS, which i’m sure you know is akin to “shouting” in chatdom…
“Marina can speak softly or LOUDLY and it is all good.”…Rule “huh? what’d she say?” in The Marina Sychophant Handbook…
Send me a copy of this rulebook, OK
Why do you want a copy of annuddermale’s head, stoker?
Are you thinking of taking up Soccer?
Hey Bob this vids for you;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLYhtFEQ07A
Yahoo is blocking.
Well fooey on Yahoo.
I know some boys who say HooYa that can fix them up.
Im getting your emailed comments just fine Marina.
Hey there You Loggerhead. I don’t mean this in a spiteful or mean manner.
CaptainJack is a turtle?…
come out of your shell, Jack!…
annuddermale, and your an annuddermale of this http://www.thefreedictionary.com/diamondback+terrapin
LOL !! If I feed more to this, will it work like an internet-black-hole or
www-singularity?
(Earlier quote from Marina)
“Huh, you only comment on the comments that are commented on as replies to comments that you commented on that are not comments that are … oh forget it.. I give up!”
Just a bit more could have an atomic chain reaction!! (pfffbllt !!! lol !!)
To comment: I sure don’t know what you think you’re talking about.
Yahoo does these sort of things from time to time. Take yours now that you know it’s not the HFW-site.
Hello Marina,
I have always gotten replies from the HFW website no matter what for a long time, so it is not the HFW website.
The majority of the problems tend to be user’s email provider, or to say it another way; Sending emails is usually instant, however, getting emails is a major issue due to ISP filtering of spam and other email management.
For example, if you are using AT&T as your email provider, by default, they block certain emails. The same is true for AOL and other providers. Users need to be familiar with their web based email control panels. Even if you are using a POP3 email client with AT&T, the web based control panel will still affect some parts of your POP3 email.
Everyone that has issues, check your web bases control panels for settings related to spam, viruses and other filter settings. Contact your ISP to help you. Also, do check your spam and trash folders.
IE 7 blocks certain scripts or frames from your emails and I can’t figure if it’’s own my end or yours.
Marina,
The EMAIL notice that someone replied to my comment went to my Junk folder for the first time.
BoArgMir
note that some providers blacklist e-mails from domains without provocation…AT&T/Bellsouth seems to be notorious for this…
i work for a hotel supply company – we host our own e-mail…for a week or so we had problems because Bellsouth blocked our domain without warning…we couldn’t reply or send e-mails to bellsouth.net customers or vendors even though nothing had changed at our end…the solution was to write abuse_rbl@abuse-att.net and request removal from their blacklist…
Bellsouth doesn’t use spamcop or public blacklist servers – it compiles its own lists, and mistakes are plentyful…
so it may be that Marina will have to contact some e-mail providers to specifically request removal of her domain from their blacklist…
but i’m not having any problems on Yahoo…
The good news: Hot For Words site posts
showing new lessons, are working on my
Yahoo.
The other news: when a reader responds
to my posted comment, I do not receive
an email to notify me of the response,
since the server changeout.
tested and verified
Looking forward to a fix, if this is a bug.
I have to figure a way for CoComments
to pull this duty – as it should, anyway.
keep banging the rocks together!
ciao
phony–not from the French “faux”?
Nope fphs1946, it comes from what I said in the video. It is a common misconception that it came from the French faux… maybe the French faux comes from the same origin! But I have not looked into that.
DOROGAYA MARINA,the FRENCH faux derives from Latin falsus,from the verb fallere=to deceive
and so FALSE as well…i think
Tell us about the very versatile word
lubricious
slippery when wet
– Bon Jovi
Sad at the end…”nice outside”…”sitting home all day long”…
you caught that too?
almost a melancholy edge…
thought she may have been
studying for her next hangover!
… or maybe, just got up from
a nap?
That is obviously a clip from an older vid. but I can only scratch my head as to which one. Usually the outtakes make me laugh, I just felt a little saddened at the little snipet. (not that there is anything wrong with that)
can you please find the origin of the words pornography or hentai
can you find out the origin of the word geography
Dear Marina,
I’d rate your video five stars, and I’d rate that red dress a Ten! (You must own so many dresses, you have different ones every video!) I’d like to request a word you use frequently: “dear.” How did it become a term of endearment?
Hoping to remain your dear student, CM6.
Marina – I just wanted to thank you again for helping my son expand his vocabulary.He is learning more language than ever and enjoying your videos while learning and I am very grateful. Thank you also for that nice shout out to my article about you and thank you for putting in bloopers at the end of some videos. He is learning that it is okay not to be perfect all the time.
The most recent con I remember is when someone in a store yelled to my mother about a shoplifter being “over there” and she pointed. Then when my mother looked for the shoplifter, the woman grabbed my mother’s purse and ran. That was a con for sure! There was no other shoplifter. The woman was pretending to be helpful but that was phoney. She was dishonest but my mother learned a lesson about holding on tightly to her purse.
My pleasure! I am trying to do things to make the lessons even more fun.. I got a green screen… and as soon as I can figure out how to use it. I might put myself in all kinds of exotic locations related to the words
Good to know of these updates
Once in a while, keep the kitchen setting. Gives it that “We’re studying with the tutor” whilst we get an e-feeding of plasma-screen fish!
Marina, what program(s) are you using?
Love that idea!
Can you appoint me your chief adviser for exotic locations and outfits?
Green screen? kewl!
You could do the Gidget thang.
film yourself so it looks like
your balancing on a surf board
with the waves in background
(one way to get you into a bikini!)
Worked out well for Sally Fields!
Thats fantastic jcr! Marina really has the talent to get the guys attention to hopefully teach them something something. What the heck? Must be an echo in here? So anyway I’m also learning from a bunch of great guys here also. There are some very bright individuals that really keep this blog rolling. Without them I would have left months ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love Marina’s lessons, but the discussions afterwards really help expose the word more so it is better absorbed in the mind.
ditto
Care to throw some History into your English lessons?
During WWII The Americans refered to the English as Limeys and Tommies. Where’d these nicknames come from?
Marina, could you explain where the word Illuminati comes from?
Marina, I do love the videos but is one every day is too much? Will you lose interest at this rapid pace?
We all know that hotforwords.com will lead to something bigger for you, be sure to keep up the quality/ content of your terrific little videos in the meantime. That way, when our wives find us watching your channel, we can say “Look! It’s educational! ”
Anna Kournikova became so popular because she was not only sexy, but very good at what she did (Tennis!) Eventually she turned into a cartoon of herself, just a sex symbol, nothing more. There are lots of sexy women on the web; you are special because you have both beauty AND brains. Don’t forget!
RN
randyn, I’ll never lose interest… Anna Kournikova, the girl you reference was a good tennis player, but I don’t think she really had the desire to play like other tennis players, like Sharapova for example.
In order to be good at something, or rather, be the best, you have to LOVE what you do first of all.. and I bet the really good tennis players play EVERY SINGLE day. They don’t get bored.. and if they do.. or they find other things more excited (ie: Kournikova).. then their tennis game will falter as a result.
I have SO MANY more words to cover and I LOVE what I am doing! I will NEVER tire of this.. so there is no need to worry about that happening. And don’t worry… I will not start doing words just for the sake of doing a lesson.. I make sure that each lesson is at least interesting. I have 2,302,123 words to go! Must get back to work
Yes, my dear teacher,
Your focus and drive are truly remarkable. People who settle for mediocrity tend to get what they deserve. People who are never quite satisfied with their progress will excel in the long run. Thanks for another quinte-stellar lesson!
“Kournikova would whiff in any competition against Marina.”…Rule 0-0 in The Marina Sychophant Handbook…
Thank you for your statement of your goal. I’ve been looking for the answer to my question I posed to you weeks or month ago and you have answered it well. You are a philologist and a teacher. Your goal is to teach word etymology to the masses and nothing more. Your here to stay. Thats fantastic news. I really admire people who find their place in the world. I have set my goal to teach people things maritime related. Its a job I can do from the comfort of my yacht. I can work at my own pace and I get back exactly what I put into it. Thats suits me just fine.
Keep up the great work you have been doing Marina. If their is anything you need just do what you have been doing, Asking…
Can I request a name, again?
Eric!
Like me, my name’s etymology is probably extremely interesting and intriguing.
Oh, and modest, humble and unassuming….. 
I would like to request for the origins of the word “bourgeoisie”
thanks!!
your obedient student…
Another shell game trick is the “three card monte” (as distinguished from the “full monte”
).
What about the pig-in-a-poke scam, which you talked about in a previous video?
There’s the badger game extortion scam, perpetrated on married men. The mark is deliberately coerced into a compromising position, a supposed affair for example, then threatened with public exposure of his acts unless blackmail money is paid.
The Melon Drop is a scam in which the scammer will intentionally bump into the mark and drop a package containing glass that has already been broken. He will claim that the contents were broken by the clumsiness of the mark, and demand money to replace them.
The glim-dropper requires several accomplices, one of whom must be a one-eyed man. One grifter goes into a store and pretends he has lost his glass eye. Everyone looks around, but the eye can’t be found. He declares that he will pay a thousand-dollar reward for the return of his eye, leaving contact information. The next day, an accomplice enters the store and pretends to find the eye. The storekeeper (the intended griftee), thinking of the reward, offers to take it and return it to its owner. The finder insists he will return it himself, and demands the owner’s address. Thinking he will lose all chance of the reward, the storekeeper offers a hundred dollars for the eye. The finder bargains him up to $250, and departs. The one-eyed man, of course, can not be found and does not return.
Not just on married men …
… wasn’t this a standard KGB recruitment tactic?
Hm, also wondering what is the origin of the word “Scam” so I’m going to request it ^.^… Oh wait! I did already!
I think the cups and money thing you are referring to is the “shell game.”
Oh My HotForWords,
So many posting in one day.
And on a holiday no less.
Your a workaholic but in your case spelt wordaholic.
How about explaining the origin of “Workaholic” with emphasis on the aholic portion.
Or “Chill” being to relax.
Also we haven’t seen the pups lately.
And shame on them that called you a phoney.
No one would be able to put on an afront concerning philology unless they were the genuine and dedicated real thing.
(Suggest you lose the yellow backdrop. Hey our houses are messy too, cause we are spending all our time waiting on new videos of you)
Direct relation to the word “phoney”, Marina, class.
Lex and Terry
perform a radio “bit” where they have digital recordings of a person’s
voice in common responses. For example: “Hello”, “No, I don’t think so”, “What’s going on?”, all stored in a computer so, this can be
massive!
Here is where it pays to be a professional or at least allow the
person in on the joke. Lex & Terry would call up 1-900-numbers
with, for instance, Homer Simpson’s voice or Dr. Phil talking to
a phone service. It would be no one of consequence.
Alternately,
I had a best friend (call by initials JK back in New York). JK was
busy so much with college that he used this idea with his own voice
answering phone by computer. I witnessed how detailed he made it
and was impressed that it would work. One of his lady friends called
trying to make plans and entirely by computer did he respond !!
Clever. Darkly clever.
When days later, I started meeting up with friend after friend of his,
who would say, “I don’t know why you hang out with that jerk”, it
still didn’t hit me.
I tried calling to set up a plan for doing things and got a no-show.
Phoney – direct relation. I wouldn’t say this was the first instance in
time that such deceptions were possible. But, one may postulate.
Anyone trying to perform the prank, beware. Fast results occur.
Bring friends into the joke *before* they hang up.
Hm, also wondering what is the origin of the word “Scam” so I’m going to request it ^.^… Oh wait! I did already!
if pete and re-pete are sitting on a wall, and
pete falls off, who would be left?
Say again.
humpty-dumpty, ‘course…
No, just the wall.
My 87 year old grandfather always says, “this is the phoniest weather I have ever seen”. He is talking about the weather we have here in Atlantic canada. It changes frequently.
I mean phoney. . . .I wont get to be the teachers pet now
My father told me that he used to play a confidence trick when he was a little boy.
He would go down to the local corner store with a ball of string.
He’d go up to someone standing looking in the window and tell them he was measuring up the store for the owner, and ask them to hold one end of the string for him.
Then he’d go round the corner and do the same to another window-shopper, before ducking under the string into the store and out the back entrance.
He and his brothers would then watch from across the street, to see how long it took the two stooges to figure out they’d been had.
sounds like a snipe hunt!
melikadothechacha, are you not getting notified of this reply? I didn’t turn that feature off and I am getting email notifications! You are not? Are they suddenly in your spam folder? I need to know in order to fix this!
Thanks!
Marina
– Actually, this replies to Marina’s technical question:
Is melik… getting his notifications.
I signed up for it and it only worked once. To the side but related:
My browser links the RSS feed (unsure of what that totally includes)
but when you revise your lessons … two hours late for an update.
Does that help describe anything going wrong?
I used to lock my keys into my car often for some reason ( guess I missed my pocket). I was able to find someone who could break into my car so I could get my keys out. I was able to do this often. Then I thought , Hey I could turn anybody into a car thief. Why break into a car myself when I can engineer someone into doing it for me! Then many moons later I seen something on TV of that same thing. People would help you break into a car and NEVER ask for any ID! Crazy hu?
In my computer hacking days I used to do whats called Social Engineering. What we (other hackers) would do is call up an employee on the phone and pose as company techs trying to fix the computer systems. We could talk the person into giving use a log in name and password. Over time we where thinking we just could all up anybody in the company and just say “Hello, Im friendly neighborhood computer hacker. Could you help me out and give me your log in and password?”
Yes I used to do a bit of computer hacking. I even got my code name from being a teachers pet. I was her little computer wizard. Oh and she was teaching reading, writing and English for 7th graders. She asked me to find a book to read. All she had was boring books. So I picked up a Dictionary and read that. Funny, I remember actually enjoying that.
What is the origin of the word Tattoo?
It originated with on small, little-known south Pacific island and was coined by a mysterious and powerful man known only as “Mr. Roarke.”
Tattoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX-pVhTZg0U
Hey !! Nice air traffic control tower !!
So, is anyone going to cut and paste some of that in a way which we
might see ol’ Herve’s real fantasy?
“I vant to be the teacher’s pet, boss!”
Funny! I just watch an old episode last week via the internet.
I got two very random requests:
1) “bangor to barstow”
2) kumbaya
Thanks!
Rhythm is a strange word. Where did it come from?
i would like to reqwuest a very long word and i would like the origins of it.
word:lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaome litokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopelei olagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon
yea i know crazy word 189 letters
At least you sound convincing and you are a Master in words.
One side note. Your videos apear a bit repetitive, watch out not to become dull.
But I do still like to learn each day and wait for the blooper(s).
My request is following up this word ‘phoney’. Where does the word scam come from?
Thanks,
- Unomi -
Dull? you must be down to your
last testicle, thinking like that!
How did you lose the first one??
Who says I’m a guy?
The readers who read carefully have read that I said “watch out not to become dull”. So it’s not dull yet.
OK, there are some ‘games’ between the lessons etc. That’s good and entertaining.
But if you watch closely (and I believe you do), Marina uses certain tricks. But she uses the same tricks over and over again.
Why can’t I say that that becomes dull after a while?
- Unomi -
soul smart
Ah Unomi ….
These Russian gals are quite crafty. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out – ZING – the rug comes out from under your feet because they teach you something new & it knocks you over. The axioms you hold true …. another person, another point of view.
(Flush my poetry, will ya? Thanks!)
You have nuts?
Quote
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint Exupery …do you T.A.’s pick the HOTforWords quotes?
Hm, she has to get a 3rd hand and a 2nd head then she holds more variants to “move”.
) because you listened closely will do fine. ( Doh, lazy guy doesn´t use the English Grammer Software 
, but hopefully you can read it ! )………… Teacher teacher where is the next video ? 
Its the same with every Film or show you watch there always comes the day where it repeats more or less, but thats not the point why you should be watching it. It´s for the knowledge, and some nice kiss(
Unomi said
Who says I’m a guy?
Oh. so i was half right?
I knew you were light
at least one, didn’t
know it would be both!
My mistake.
I understand what you wrote
better, now, and all gender
related issues aside;
let me state clearly
that over time you will
notice syntax stability
and diversity in her format
Your choice of the word
“dull” drew my attention.
Just pickin’ a bone, not a fight!
You should get a Gravatar
so we can see your smiling
face!
Great…I always wanted to ask that word but never realy got to it..
Now I am caught up. Answer: cups and balls(?). Three card Monty, Gypsies (no offense) play any game to con a homeowner from money, and what ever that game is called when a novice street drug buyer purchases a dime bag ($10.00) of cocaine, but gets laundry detergent or baking soda to clean his nose.
PS no trouble what so ever with this supercharged website, although I have to ask myself, why am I spending time with answers to what are words for a toilet?
hi marina… have u ever wonder where the word ‘amok’ came from?
Dear Marina,
Did you know you are in Wikipedia now? That’s cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Orlova
BoArgMir
Wow! Thanks!
they got all the details right!
Yeah, all the ones they think they know, that we think we know.
Another great video. I’ll have to give it 5 stars…..now I just need to get off my duff and subscribe to that channel…
As for con games, …..well, there’s the old shell game……and….I’m at a loss now….**hangs head in shame**
you sure wear it well
she realy puts the “uh” in ungawa!
can u do one for the word kudos. Please do one for kudos, make me happy please. Kudos!
Hi there HotForWords, I just registered at Your web site and would like to know the origin of word ‘polish’ as ‘to polish’, did it come as an adjective from Poland or not (as I am polish:))
doing a great job, keep it up :>
I don’t want to sound evil or anything but can you find out where the word hell came from?
Norway.
That’s awesome. I’ve actually been there. I have pictures near the Hell-Gods Expedition building. I think “Gods Expedition” means something like “goods transportation.”
I don’t want to sound evil or anything but can you find out where the world hell came from?
Another milestone video! Bravo!
Hope you didn’t fall on anything
important*.. at the end, there..uhm
You have made us wait a long
time to see how FINE you look
wearing that red dress.
Yes indeed.. mighty fine.
*Kobe!
Did you catch any pyro?
Did a gig for Zambelli tonite
Did coordination for one of
two barges, each laden with
4000 lbs of rockets and
mortars. Old style, atom bursts,
Saturn bursts – colorfull stuff.
We shot six, 1000 feet high,
1000 feet spread – Chrysanthimums
(sorry if not sic -wore out)
they go for $1G apiece!
all but 2 mortars popped,
we had rain half an hour
before lift off, talk about
sponsor stress – Oy!
It went good, they got
happy, again.
What was the homework?
con games? bag tricks?
two tens for a five?
All that comes to mind is
the Kansas City shuffle,
but you need a dead body
(and Bruce Willis & Josh Hartnet
i’m glad you got a day
to just hang out – recharge.
Don’t know how many more
lessons are still in the can!
Time to batch out some more!
Love to see you wear red – uh huh!
Mel.. ,Marina,
Sounds like a huge show! Down here in St Pete, Florida – we had
a show at the pier and one across county where some friends at
98Rock ran a show.
4000 lbs?! I have no idea how long that can last but it sure sounds
like about a half an hour. We had cool effects of shapes in our blasts.
I can surmise how they get the effect yet, it is still thrilling to see
an “X” shaped mark in the sky or rings open up like some time vortex
is imminently happening.
… Did they? or was that the Schmirnoff-Richter syndrome at the end?
there was a pod setup on the shore battery
for the finale – 20 minutes of non-stop
concussion, “pants rippers”
Woke up to find undetonated mortar
round in the yard! one of those jobs that
makes all the swimmers in the sky.
with the sequencing – the show took
an hour.
Yeah, some of them really can be felt in the gut like standing close to a concert speaker playing too much bass !!
Undetonated !! Yikes !! How do you take care of that ? I imagine the potential danger to be fatality ….
BTW – if I can get this picture scanned, I’d like to put it into the site.
Be back….
Update: Haven’t figured out how to upload a picture I have scanned
to the HFW-web-site. For the Fourth of July topic it might have been
to your liking.
Entitled: Polish Rocket Testing Team (I *AM* your token Polish fellow)
At my job we refurbish Javelin anti-tank rocket components and
while the boss was on vacation one week ….
…. I’m there in from of the Fire-retardent chemical cabinet holding a
soda can atop my head while my lead man is shouldering the Javelin
tube – leveling it just so. Sorry I couldn’t get you the physical picture.
But, Melika, class, if you’re ever in St Pete, Florida – they know me
at the Pinellas Park Winghouse. Gladly show you my work!
48th!!!
in case you didn’t get a reply about getting a gravatar icon, go to http://en.gravatar.com/ & follow directions…
hallo, just call me schnell if you use my word, which is Ostentatious.
thank you
Ein bischen langsamen, bitte
[a little slower, please]
macht schnell…nicht langsam, mel…
I know another term for scam or cheating-how about the New England Patriots? I don’t hate them but there were a lot of rumors about the Patriots being cheaters stealing other teams plays behind they’re backs.
Hi my name is Giz a.k.a GizzyGiz21. If you ever shout me out on one of your videos can you make sure you spell my name with two capital Gs. Like (GizzyGiz21). Do you know were the word “Friend” came from ?
Haha RETRO Marina! By the way can you derive the origin of the word retro for me please Marina??
Thanks
Matthew
Just keep on doing better all the time. Becoming a fan. Chief
Right on chief! …Don’t worry, soon you will find that its only reason why you actually have to turn on the computer…oh, you’ll get there.
Use to be five minutes a day!
…then 20 minutes, then 2 hours…
HotForwords is part of my wake
up routine – coffee and Marina!
gets my eyes buggin’ early
fans are good…they cool ya off…
just don’t become a rabid fan…
Might it have something to do with the French word “faux” meaning false?
The fawney-rig sounds a lot like the Nigerain 403 (or some similar number) scam… where you get an email from a supposed long lost relative or buisiness man in big financial trouble saying that you can have a huge amount of money…. if you donate a thousand dollars or so for transferring the money.
#37 late again, Did I miss alot?
Wallpaper looks the same..
Yes,the wallpaper! Are there really only four of them?…tell me there are more?
Someone once told me I was gullible,and I believed it !
That was pretty funnny!
Dude. how do i get my gravitar? geronimo said you would know.