TheBanyanTree: The Mother of all Helpful information

[Peter Macinnis]

diatoms.  Chemical elements which form molecules containing two atoms, such
as nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and chlorine.

dictation.  Something formerly done by employers to short-hand writers who
then typed it up.  In these more liberated days, women refuse to take so
much for grunted.

dictionary.  A collection of words which features all the words you already
know, all the spellings you do not know and so cannot find in the first
place, and all of the meanings except the one you want.  A good dictionary
is never self-referencing, which is why this dictionary is a good one.

die.  The singular form of dice which is preferred by the pedant.  Most
people prefer the old adage that you should never say die.

Diesel Irae.  A work by John Cage, in the form of a tone poem which tells
the story of a transcontinental (USA) race between seventy three large
trucks, but rarely performed as the work is intended to be a 'real time'
piece, and players and audience alike usually succumb to exhaust fumes
after about the eighth hour.  Cage also wrote an abbreviated chamber piece
from the same score for three motor scooters racing across a football field.

differential.  A device used by orators wishing to sound technical.  At
night, all differentials are grey, according to the well-tested
differential equation.

differential calculus.  The small pebbles and gravel which, when placed in
a differential, serve to quieten temporarily the fatal noises being made by
that part of a used car which is being offered for sale.

digital.  The name applied to any electronic device which does, usually at
great expense, something that used to be done by hand.  See manual.

digital model.  A remarkably well-dressed finger puppet.

digital watch compass.  Most Boy Scouts learn how to tell north from the
sun, using an analogue watch, but this can also be done with a digital
watch.  Stand still, whirl the watch around your head, and let it go.  If
you hear a tinkle, your watch has gone west.  Face that way, turn 90o to
the right, and you will be facing north.

diminishing returns.  With the change from foolscap to A4 paper some years
ago, taxation returns are now smaller than they used to be.  Watchful tax
officials realised that this caused the print to be smaller, which seemed
useful to them.  Each year, the taxation return diminishes a little more.

Ding an sich.  An American term used colloquially to describe seriously
uncontrolled tintinnabulation.  See Pavlov.

dinosaur.  The variety of knife offered to customers in cheap steakhouses.

diode.  A clever piece of poetry, generally short, which can be read, word
by word, in either direction, having a clear meaning in each case.  If the
lines rhyme in both directions, it is generally referred to as a diverse.

diplomacy.  The art of saying one thing and meaning another, from the Greek
diplos, 'double'.  The ideal result is that you let somebody else have your
way.

diptych.  A Welsh mining device, used to measure the dip of strata in
coal-mining districts.  The pronunciation is impossible, but the effects
are remarkably useful, so it is usually called a 'Welsh stick'.

dirge.  Originally, a Greek funeral barge, from which has stemmed the
modern and mistaken belief that the term has to do with music of a funereal
nature.

dirty-minded.  A term use to describe the outlook of somebody with a good
sense of humus.

discrimination.  Generally applied on the grounds of choler or greed.

dispersal.  The act of bag-snatching.

distaff.  The act of making somebody redundant.

djinn.  A spirit, normally kept in a bottle.

doctor.  1. A professional who buries his mistakes, and who usually does
not have a doctoral degree.  2. Any other professional person who takes
money for looking at sick things, and whose professional body has decided
that they may call themselves doctor, e.g., a dentist or a veterinary
surgeon.  It can only be a matter of time before lawyers decide to style
themselves 'Doctor', since their clients are usually left looking ill after
the final accounting.  See also surgeon.

Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge.  The pen-name under which Lewis Carroll wrote
mathematics, being too embarrassed, as a successful writer, to admit that
he was also engaged in such frivolous pursuits as symbolic logic.

doggerel.  Poetry written by an enemy.

dog Latin.  The term used to describe such phrases as cave canem.

Doppelgängers.  Very fast moving people.  They travel so fast that their
Doppler shifts ride up, exposing their nether regions.  This usually rouses
sufficient ire in the person suffering this indignity to cause it to be
beside itself.  A similar condition can also be found in authors
constrained to use non-gender-specific language, even though it leads to
patently absurd results.

dot matrix printer.  An electrically powered computer peripheral,
originally designed as a paper-shredder.  While it is sometimes a failure
in that role, it has since found a variety of other uses.

double blind experiment.  A study wherein neither the experimenter nor the
experimentee knows what is happening.  This of course presupposes rather
foolishly that it is otherwise in other kinds of experiments.

double negative.  Not unusual, according to unusually unreliable sources.

dowse.  In the early 18th century, criminals used this word when they meant
to take down, in the sense of taking down a pendant.  Present-day water
dowsers use the word with the same meaning intended.

doxology.  The study of music performed on strumpets.


  _--|\    Peter Macinnis             macinnis at ozemail.com.au
 /     \   Lecturer in comparative conchology and shell sorts,
 \.--._*   Zingen Institut of  Motet Repair and Management
      v    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm