The other joke and meme thread

[Erestor Arcamen]

Use this thread for jokes and memes that do NOT relate to Tolkien.

Keep things appropriate or we'll have to sick Grond on you

 

[d4rk3lf]

 

[Deimos]

 

[Deimos]

Certe vetus est! Iocus noster sub terra mille annos dormiebat et tantum pulverem bibliothecae bibit. Nunc autem oculos noli nimis revolvere, ne cerebri tui rotae dentatae dissiliant et calcei tui rursus canere incipiant!

Avis stulta fenestram pulsat,
Klaatu

Praefectus Oculorum Volubilium
Curator Risi Antiqui

Nil refert....Rotae dentatae cerebri mei robiginosae sunt et calcei mei cum dissonancia cantant.
(Et peritia tua Latinae melior est quam mea. ...Took me awhile to translate your reply without using google .** 😄)
Et quid de ave stulta?
** Tempus consumpsi scriptum tuum convertendo sine auxilio Google 🙂

 

[Radaghast]

 

[Deimos]

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

 

[Deimos]

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

View attachment 49811

I need me one of those

 

[Deimos]

I need me one of those

I was curious about the word so I queried AI (Gemini) ....
I asked it several questions:
1) is discombobulate a real word and, if so, what is its etymology
2) when did airports start making "Recombobulation Areas"
AI answers:
Yes, discombobulate is a real, standard English word meaning to confuse, upset, or throw into a state of disorientation. [1, 2]

Etymology and Origin

• Time and Place: It originated in the United States in the 1830s (first appearing in variants like discombobricate or discombobberate around 1834).
• Mock-Latin Coinage: It was created as a playful, humorous "dog Latin" word. During the 19th century, Americans had a fad for inventing long, fancy-sounding pseudo-Latin words to satirize academic formality and high society.
• Roots: It is a fanciful alteration or blend inspired by genuine words like discompose, discomfit, or discomfort (using the negative prefix dis-), paired with a nonsense, playful middle and ending (-combobulate) that has no true classical Latin root.
• Related Coinages: It belongs to the same 19th-century American slang wave as words like absquatulate, confusticate, and spifflicate.**

Airports began officially adding designated "Recombobulation Areas" in 2008. [1]
The concept and the signage were invented by Barry Bateman, the former airport director at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE) in Wisconsin

• The Reason: Following the implementation of much stricter TSA security checkpoints in the 2000s, Bateman noticed how stressed, frazzled, and physically "discombobulated" passengers were after taking off their shoes, unpacking their laptops, and rushing through the metal detectors. [1, 2]
• The Solution: He had the airport's in-house sign shop print out custom signs reading "Recombobulation Area" and placed them immediately after the security checkpoints alongside benches and tables. The goal was to give travelers a dedicated space to put their shoes back on and collect their belongings while bringing a bit of humor and levity to a tense process. [1, 2]
• Linguistic Fame: The word recombobulate was technically a modern invention—a brand-new antonym to the 19th-century discombobulate. It was so clever that in early 2009, the American Dialect Society officially named "recombobulation area" the "Most Creative Word of the Year." [1, 2, 3]

While almost every airport in the world now features "post-security re-gowning zones" *** with benches to gather your belongings, Milwaukee (MKE) remains uniquely famous for being the only airport to officially use the "Recombobulation Area" trademark signage

** spifficate ... I love this word
*** "post-security re-gowning zones"... leave it to a govt agency to come up with bloated verbose bureaucratese.