DECEPTIVE TERMINOLOGY

You might be a clatterfart and you never knew it! Discover 10 odd words

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Even if you consider yourself a skilled wordsmith, the English language can still catch you off guard. Some words that sound innocent are actually quite nasty, while others that might raise eyebrows are perfectly harmless and have entirely different meanings. For your convenience —and because they're quite amusing— we've gathered some of the foulest-sounding suspects in the dictionary. So, next time someone asks if you play the humpenscrump or whether you happen to be a ballhooter in your free time, don't rush to be offended. Read this article first!

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No, it doesn't mean anything even remotely related to what you are likely thinking. Fartlek is a Swedish term meaning "speed play." It refers to a training method used by runners that involves varying their pace throughout a run. This technique allegedly helps improve both speed and endurance, making workouts more dynamic and engaging.

That said, unless you're talking with a professional runner, we don’t recommend asking your friends or family if they fartlek daily.

Image: Dmitry Grigoriev

"Have you seen that pretty bumbass?" may sound questionable, but in reality, it’s a rather cute observation. Bumbass is an old dialect word from northern England that simply means bumblebee.

These mostly harmless and industrious insects are crucial for pollination and play a vital role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. So, the next time you spot a bumbass in your garden, you can refer to it by name, it won’t get offended and sting you!

Image: Joshua J. Cotten

It almost feels like it’s the perfect word to call someone annoying or obnoxious. But again, its real meaning couldn’t be further from that. A pontoon is a flat-bottomed boat or a floating structure used to support bridges, docks, or piers.

Curiously, the original word is derived from Old French, and it was spelled "ponton" until World War II when American engineers added an "o" to differentiate between the bridge itself (ponton) and the floats used to provide buoyancy (pontoon).

Image: Chris Yang

You can almost imagine a vile and hunched creature, muttering incomprehensible things behind your back, but perhaps that's more of a hobgoblin. A slobgollion, on the other hand, is something entirely different.

In mining terminology, slobgollion refers to a watery mixture of ore and dirt. And while it might still sound somewhat unappealing, it plays a crucial role in the mineral extraction process by assisting in the separation of valuable metals from the surrounding material.

Image: Lena Kudryavtseva

Smearcase is an old term for a type of cottage cheese with roots in American German communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore. The word itself derives from the phonetic spelling of the German word Schmierkäse, which quite literally means "spreadable cheese."

You can still call someone a smearcase, I guess, but —especially if they are of German origin— they won't feel insulted in the least, though they might find you amusing.

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A haboob is a type of intense duststorm or sandstorm that occurs in arid regions, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. The term originates from the Arabic word habūb meaning "to blow."

While the term might sound like something out of a fantasy novel, haboobs are a real and significant meteorological phenomenon that affect weather patterns and daily life in the regions they impact. Today, the term is even used to describe seasonal dust storms in Arizona.

Image: Jack Hamilton

Klaberjass is a popular card game with roots in the Netherlands and Germany, known for its complex rules and strategic play. Also known as Bela, it is part of the Jass family of card games, which enjoys widespread popularity across Europe.

The name klaberjass comes from the Dutch word klaverjas, which combines klaver (meaning "clover," referring to the suit of clubs) and jas (which means "Jack"). In this game, players use a deck of 32 cards and strive to win tricks and score points through a mix of strategy and luck. Despite its unusual name, Klaberjass is enjoyed by many for its depth and the social interaction it fosters.

Image: Ben White

Clatterfart is an archaic term for a gossip or someone who talks too much. If you know someone who can’t keep a secret and feels compelled to talk about everything, constantly, then that person is certainly a clatterfart!

Although it doesn’t sound too nice, it’s not necessarily rude, either. A clatterfart might simply be a person who enjoys conversing with others, albeit perhaps with too much enthusiasm and energy.

Image: Mario La Pergola

Although it would not seem out of place in the mouth of an angry medieval tavern keeper ("Begone from mine tavern, ye filthy humpenscrumps!"), the term humpenscrump is not at all what it seems.

Actually, humpenscrump is a whimsical old English word for a sort of cruder version of the hurdy-gurdy, a popular medieval musical stringed instrument played by turning a hand-crank wheel that rubs against the strings.

Image: Afif Ramdhasuma

Kerfuffle means a commotion or fuss, especially one caused by conflicting views. It often implies a trivial argument that has been blown out of proportion, and it is a light-hearted way to describe minor conflicts.

While its modern form dates back to the early 20th century, it has older roots. The term is an alteration of carfuffle, a Scottish word that means "agitation" or more generally, the "state of being disordered or ruffled."

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER

Shoot For The Stars: Can You Name These 10 Terms That Originated From Science Fiction?

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We truly live in an era of technological marvels. Think back on those futuristic gadgets and gizmos showcased on TV shows and films from your childhood. Perhaps you pretended to communicate through a portable screen like the ones seen on Star Trek, which are eerily similar to the smartphone you are probably reading this article on. Or maybe you were amazed by that amazing virtual shark that leaps at Marty McFly in Back to the Future 2, which would now be made completely obsolete by our current 3-D films.

The world of science-fiction has always provided humankind with new horizons and discoveries to shoot for, in our search for a better and more exciting tomorrow. That’s why today we have gathered a list of terms that have leaped from the incredible minds of science-fiction authors onto our everyday lives.

Image: Aideal Hwa

We’ll start this list with what’s probably science fiction’s bread and butter. Robots are undeniably an essential component of modern culture: Think of any decade from the past two centuries and you’ll find more than a few iconic robots shining through. The ‘50s had Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, the ‘60s were comforted by the Jetson’s loyal maid, Rosie, and the ‘80s were shaken by Schwarzenegger’s relentless Terminator.

While the word robot was coined by Czech writer Karel Čapek in 1920, legendary science-fiction author Isaac Asimov first used the term "robotics" in his 1942 short story Runabout, which introduced his now quintessential Three Laws of Robotics. While the term is still a sci-fi staple, the interdisciplinary study of robotics has become one of the most groundbreaking and exciting career paths today.

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While the feeling of truly weightlessly floating in space is reserved for only a few selected astronauts, the freedom and wonder associated with the term "zero gravity" is one we can all enjoy. Through good old-fashioned Hollywood magic, movies have shown us both the unbelievable delight and the daring challenges that zero gravity has to offer.

While the origins of this term are still debated, it is believed that comic book artist Jack Binder was the first to use the phrase "zero gravity" in a 1938 article titled "If Science Reached the Earth's Core." In 1952, English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke used the shortened term "zero-g" in his 1952 novel Islands in the Sky.

Image: NASA

Defining the term "deep space" can be surprisingly tricky. After all, isn’t anything away from the Earth’s atmosphere considered outer space? While that is technically true, referring to the infinite vastness on which this majestic blue marble of ours is suspended simply as "space" seems a bit limited. However uncanny a feat the moon landing might seem when compared with the millions of kilometers that separate us from the sun, a trip to our closest satellite might seem like a quick run through the park. Luckily, we have "deep space" when we want to refer to any of those unreachable (at least for now) corners of our cosmos.

The term "deep space" was coined by American science fiction author E.E. "Doc" Smith in his 1934 novel Triplanetary. Smith, considered by many to be the father of the space opera genre, used the term to illustrate a futuristic age in which humankind explored the Solar system and formed alliances with other planetary governments.

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This one is a bit controversial, and not only because of the nature of malware. While nowadays computer viruses are an all too real danger to anyone connected to the internet (which is to say, basically everyone), the first popular use of this term was in a 1970 short story titled The Scarred Man written by astrophysicist and author Gregory Benford. In the story, a computer program called VIRUS causes havoc on computers with early dialing capability. However, what’s interesting is that Benford based this story on a real-life computer virus he helped create in the 1960s, as a proof of concept for a lab computer.

Image: Rod Long

Think about a futuristic engine or thruster, filled with flashing lights and bursts of astonishing blue energy, and you might be thinking about an ion drive. This term is one of the many technologies that you might find on your favorite piece of science fiction, right next to hyperdrive, jump drive, or ultradrive. Ion drives were made famous by the iconic Imperial TIE Fighters from Star Wars since their name comes from the "Twin Ion Engines" that fuel the ship.

While the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction lists Jack Williamson's 1947 short story The Equalizer as the first usage of the term ion drive, other sources state that the first idea of an ion engine comes from the 1910s book By Aeroplane to the Sun: Being the Adventures of a Daring Aviator and his Friends, written by Donald W. Horner.

Image: Anton Filatov

You might be familiar with this pop-culture staple from watching _Star Trek_’s Captain Kirk ordering "Maximum warp, Mr. Sulu" right before the Starship Enterprise disappeared in a burst of speed. Or maybe you prefer _Star Wars_’ lightspeed, where Han Solo would slowly push a lever on the Millennium Falcon that made every light source in front of the ship’s cabin stretch into beautiful white lines. Whichever franchise you prefer, warp speed refers to a spaceship’s capability of jumping into impossible speeds that allows it to travel millions of miles in mere seconds.

Alongside robotics, warp speed is perhaps the most famous term that entered popular use through science fiction. When the original 1960s Star Trek show aired, audiences were soon enraptured by its many groundbreaking concepts, and warp speed was one of the most enthusiastically debated by fans.

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It’s curious how nanotechnology can be so thrilling and scary at the same time. The concept of complex machines smaller than what the human eye can see might be instrumental in helping us cure diseases. At the same time, the thought of tiny, invisible machines invading our everyday lives is, at the very least, discomforting. In any case, nanotechnology is a particularly popular trope in science fiction. Perhaps its most famous example comes from the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, in which a submarine crew shrinks down to microscopic size to save an injured scientist.

While the first detailed concepts of nanotechnology were outlined in a 1959 talk given by physicist Richard Feynman, many primitive forms of microscopic mechanisms can be found in previous works of literature. A few years before Feynman’s talk, Arthur C. Clarke described tiny machines that operated at the micrometer scale in his short story The Next Tenants.

Image: Phil Shaw

Before Dolly the Sheep made international headlines in 1996, the concept of cloning a living creature was relegated to the world of science fiction. Artificial cloning has been the subject of many masterpieces of the genre, but it is believed that Aldous Huxley's 1931 classic Brave New World might have been the first to bring this topic to light. In the novel, a futuristic human society chooses to strictly reproduce by an in-vitro method known as the Bokanovsky's Process, which is regarded as a rudimentary method of cloning that produces identical copies in artificial wombs.

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Cyberpunk might be both the most recent and obscure item on this list. It was first mentioned in the science-fiction magazine "New Worlds" in the ‘60s and ‘70s when a group of New Wave authors introduced dystopian, futuristic worlds filled with distorted technology and disrupted cultures. Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is considered by many to be one of the founding stones of the cyberpunk genre.

However niche these origins might be, cyberpunk has evolved to influence many aspects of popular culture. Berlin’s Center Potsdamer Platz (formerly known as the Sony Center), an iconic eight-building complex located in the heart of the German capital, was heavily influenced by cyberpunk culture and aesthetics.

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Long before NASA started thinking about how to put the first astronauts into orbit, science-fiction authors had devised ways on which to send their characters onto the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space. The very first mention of a spacesuit comes from an 1898 science-fiction novel titled Edison's Conquest of Mars, written by American astronomer Garrett P. Serviss. In this story, the Wizard of Menlo Park himself leads a group of scientists to the moon, after a devastating war with Mars leaves the Earth in shambles. For this mission, Edison designs a series of "air-tight suits" for his group, which are now considered to be a rudimentary prototype of the spacesuit.