Word: thingumajig
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...polo-playing great-grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. Webb eventually inherited a house and spacious tract of land by the verdant Vermont shores of Lake Champlain. It seemed to be just the place to house Electra's collection of dolls, dollhouses - and, in fact, of every last thingumajig and whatchamacallit ever made in early America. In 1947, Mrs. Webb bought eight acres of land near the estate to create the Shelburne Museum as a home for the 125,000 objects in her collection of Americana (see color pages opposite...
Equally delicate is the choice of gift for people one knows but would like to know better. Here too, the need is for something that expresses warmth but nothing so intense as to be thought presumptuous-perhaps the silver thingumajig of indeterminate value but clearly stamped "Tiffany." The wrong but frequently observed rule is that a gift for a rich friend-acquaintance has to be relatively expensive, while the present for a friend of lower income can be relatively cheap. Thus, the giver often finds himself sulkily spending more on those who enjoy it less. Actually, any present for someone...
Sometimes It Is a Thingumajig...
...found. Thus, a whole new vocabulary has evolved. In the new jargon, a recession can be a "rolling readjustment," a "correction," a "slippage," an "easing," a "mild dip," a "downswing," a "normal adjustment," a "leveling off," a "slight downturn," a "lull," a "return to normalcy" or a "thingumajig." These euphemisms, of course, also defy definition. What, for instance, is a "return to normalcy," when for decades no one has known what economic normalcy...
Having recently decided to run for President, Howdy adds a new "thingumajig" to his platform each week from viewers' suggestions (samples: cut-rate banana splits, more pictures in history books, free circus and rodeo admissions). Last week Howdy announced that he would send campaign buttons to any child who wrote in. Two days later, the first order of 5,000 buttons had been exhausted, and requests were still arriving by the sackful...
| 1 |