blitheless

Sat Jul 21 20:51:05 UTC 2007

Two weeks ago I heard someone described as "absolutely /'blayTlIs/" (T =
theta); context made it clear that the intended meaning was about equivalent
to "clueless". Looks like a blend of "absolutely clueless" (or, as my son
suggests, "guileless", half-remembered and blended) with "blithely
[clueless/ignorant/...].

My wife noticed my reaction and nudged me to keep quiet. Bless her!

It's not in OED, M-W, or AHD4. All have "blithesome", defined as some
combination of 'cheery, merry, gay', etc., and OED has "blitheful"
    1. Kindly, friendly. Cf. BLITHE a. 1. Obs.
    2. Joyous, joyful; = BLITHE a. 2, 3.

Google has 9 hits, of which nos. 2 ('joyless'), 5, and 9 are IMHO of
interest. My comments on each follow ">>". None of them are like this one,
but the lexies on this list may want to look closer at #2 for its own sake,
and maybe look for other uses like #9. #5 looks to me like a nonce
formation.

1. Ogden Nash on Japanese Immigration
27blitless. both "bloodless" and "blitheless" .... "bloodless"
www.home.ix.netcom.com/~kyamazak/lit/Ogden_Nash/ogden_nash.htm - 31k -
 >> a gloss on a word in Nash's nonsense poem "gedondillo", but still
unexplained

2. Beowulf (Germany) by Anonymous Epic
Blitheless sate the high Prince, the Aetheling so good;. That strong Heart
stricken sate, o'er lost thanes abrood,. What time the court set eyes on the
...
www.4literature.net/Anonymous_Epic/Beowulf_Germany_/4.html - 13k -
 >> looks like antonym to OED's "blitheful"(2), i.e., 'sad, joyless'. The
main page of this version,
http://www.4literature.net/Anonymous_Epic/Beowulf_Germany_/, attributes the
translation to William Ellery Leonard [1876-1944, acc. to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ellery_Leonard]:.

3. The Empire of Corwyth :: View topic - Half-Leg Hoffentlich ...
"A good name," he barely whispers back... it's only just audible. "And
now... to business... Have you heard of the Fat Faery Blitheless?" Post
Posted: ...
www.questforheroes.com/empireofcorwyth/viewtopic.php?p=21701
 >> a madeup name in an ORPG

4. SP Sullivan
... the righteous, blitheless life listless and washed upon the shore--and
it poured; it rained for days and all the waves wiped the slate clean once
more; ...
spsullivan.blogspot.com/ - 84k
 >> not on current page at that URL, but Google cache has it in blog entry
of 17.5.07, "first thought: best thought". The blog is subtitled "A
clusterfuck of prose, poetry, prose-poetry, prosetry, fiction,
science-fiction, anachronic-fiction, journalism, ficto-journalism and your
archetypal scrawlings on the bathroom wall", and I don't think the author
much cared about exactly what s/he meant here.

5. AmericanHeritage.com / THE QUIZ-SHOW SCANDAL
Jack Gould, now thoroughly blitheless, condemned "the emotional wave of
sympathy for Mr. Van Doren." The Chicago Tribune spoke sternly of Van
Doren's ...
www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1989/4/1989_4_76.shtml
 >> Semantically opposite to "blithely" in OED's sense 3, 'Heedlessly,
carelessly; taking no account of the consequences. Freq. used to intensify
following *adj.* with negative connotation.'  First we have "blithely":
    With the deceivers closing ranks, Gould of the Times, normally a caustic
critic, spoke ***blithely*** of "the present fuss over quiz shows" and saw
nothing of consequence in the "flurry" save the welcome "fall of the quiz
empire." Not a single quiz-scandal story appeared on the front page of the
Times in 1958. A year later scarcely a single quiz story would appear
anywhere else.

  Then, a number of paragraphs further down, "blitheless" describing Gould's
change of attitude as the scandal developed:
    Nevertheless, it was the stern and unforgiving voices that prevailed in
what the Times called "the flood of reactions" to Van Doren's confession.
Columbia University, for one, fired its young professor before the day was
over, "effective immediately." NBC followed suit the next day. Arthur Krock,
a political columnist for the Times, condemned "the soft bog of open
condonement for the uncondonable." Jack Gould, now thoroughly
***blitheless***, condemned "the emotional wave of sympathy for Mr. Van
Doren." The Chicago Tribune spoke sternly of Van Doren's "spectacular
sell-out." The Wall Street Journal called the confession a "crushing blow"
to the country.

6. Moose's Friends: Tags
age; alone; black; blitheless; boy; bradleymcintosh; buffet; bumped;
depression; dragon boat; emotions; euphoria; feast; food; graphics;
hannahspearritt ...
justinkeanutan.vox.com/explore/friends/tags/ - 52k -
  >> A tag applied by some of this blogger's blogfriends to some of his
posts.

7. MARC: Mailing list ARChives
... cliquishequitably crudmuch fallaciousflawlessly whereverravenously
blitheless eelimpala contrarymore ahsorely earthwormmore faroh
sniffledsudden andless ...
www.receivingmail.com/?i=20053379.20069803.20054428.hrs%20()%20allbsd%20!%20org-
  >> Fatal error: Cannot redeclare get_artikel() (previously declared in
/var/www/virtual/receivingmail.com/htdocs/MARC/index.php:5) in
/var/www/virtual/receivingmail.com/htdocs/MARC/index.php on line 36

8. (Like #7, similar error)

9. [PDF] Residence hikes hit loan students
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
ual is blitheless and cumbersome and should. be avoided. Remember that g,ay
still means happy and. most of them are. ...
www.library.ubc.ca/archives/pdfs/ubyssey/UBYSSEY_1980_03_07.pdf -
  >> Seems approx = 'infelicitous'. This doc seems to be the student
newspaper of the Univ. of British Columbia. The word is in a discussion of
vocabulary in a column titled "OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: A scrapbook of
enlightening, entertaining and educational material supplied by members of
UBC's gay community", and the sentence is "The word homosexual is blitheless
and cumbersome and should be avoided." For those who may be interested,
here's the full item as cut-and-pasted from the PDF, with blank lines added
between the paras. The word is in the next-to-last paragraph.

Several highly sensitive individuals have
expressed some concern over their diction.
Now, there is no need to delete all potentially
offending words from your vocabulary when
keeping gay company.

"Fruit" is a perfectlyacceptablenominative
when applied to apples and their friends and
"queer" is a charming adjective, the
usefulness of which in rhyming couplets is
hard to overestimatle.

It is highly possilble that a discussion of
Holland will entail some mention of dikes and
this word is every bit as polite as dam.

"Faggot" however is no longer in common
use and is current only among thosweh o [= those who] advocate
the use of wood burning stoves. As
these tend to be ecofreaks, they are never at
my parties, where .the wearing of furs and
smoking of cigarettes are prerequisites for
admission.

I never worry about this then and see no
reason why you should. The word homosexual
is ***blitheless*** and cumbersome and should
be avoided.

Remember that g,ay still means happy and
most of them are.

-- Mark Mandel

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