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Words Clever People Know: EP and B-Side

Claire — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:45:44 +0000

EP stands for Extended Play - longer than a single, but shorter than a full album.

A B-Side used to be when you bought a single on vinyl or cassette, the single would be on the A-Side and an unrealesed song would be on the B-Side.

Words Clever People Know: Iconoclast

Claire — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:05:20 +0000

-A destroyer of images used in religious worship

1. One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.

2. One who destroys sacred religious images.

During the Protestant Reformation images in churches were again felt to be idolatrous and were once more banned and destroyed. It is around this time that iconoclast, the descendant of the Greek word, is first recorded in English (1641), with reference to the Byzantine iconoclasts. In the 19th century iconoclast took on the secular sense that it has today, as in “Kant was the great iconoclast” (James Martineau).

-The Free Dictionary

Words Cultured People Know: Otaku

Claire — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:12:57 +0000

Otaku is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, and video games – Wikipedia

Urban Dictionary:

1.Otaku is the honorific word of Taku (home).

Otaku is extremely negative in meaning as it is used to refer to someone who stays at home all the time and doesn’t have a life (no social life, no love life, etc)

Usually an otaku person has nothing better to do with their life so they pass the time by watching anime, playing videogames, surfing the internet (otaku is also used to refer to a nerd/hacker/programmer).

2.The term “otaku” seems to have been introduced to anime fans in the US and other countries via Studio Gainax’s “Otaku no Video 1985,” a self-parody film.
Otaku, meaning probably “venerable house,” refers to someone who has a devotion to a subject or hobby (not necessarily anime) to the point of not leaving home. For instance, an otaku fan of a particular movie star could quite possibly know all of the films s/he has been in, their birth date, time of birth, shoe size, favorite toothpaste, etc. Generally speaking, calling someone an otaku in Japan is an insult, implying that their social skills have atrophied or never even developed, due to their manic involvement in their chosen fandom.

In America, the term is used to denote a zealous fan, usually of anime and/or manga. Due to its introduction to most people’s vocabulary through its tongue-in-cheek use in Gainax’s film, “otaku” tends to have a much less dire definition overseas.

Words Clever People Know: Solipsism

Claire — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:28:32 +0000

Philosophy. the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.

extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one’s feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.

Frequently used adjective: solipsistic

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