A Rose By Any Other Name

After a dirty nine-month slog I have finally arrived at Chapter Two of the "Comedy Writing Workbook". Jeepers H. Cripes. Now my assignment is to find definitions of 20 words so as to learn "the nuances of the English language, and how words can be tricky, playful, and useful in creating comedy." All very useful stuff but what I want to know is, How did earlier humorists-to-be cope without Google and WordNet?

bear

1. have: "bears a resemblance"
2. wear: have on one's person: "he bears a red ribbon"
3. give birth: "she'll bear twins"
4. digest: put up with something or somebody unpleasant: "she learns to tolerate the twins"
5. move while holding up or supporting: "bearing gifts"
6. hold or support in a certain way: "she holds her head up high"
7. behave in a certain way: "she bore herself with dignity"
8. bring forth: "the tree bears apples"
9. take on as one's own the expenses or debts of another: "he bore the responsibility"
10. yield: bring in: "interest-bearing accounts"
11. have rightfully; of rights, titles, and offices: "I bear the title of Duchess"
12. an investor with a pessimistic market outlook; one who believes prices will move lower: "a bear market"
13. massive carnivorous or omnivorous mammals with long shaggy coats and strong claws
14. subculture in the gay community with stocky or heavyset builds, usually hairy, and often outwardly super masculine (bears are typically contrasted with twinks)
15. nickname: "She-bear, She-bear."
16. stuffed toy animal: "teddy bear"

(Are you actually reading this?)

carriage

1. railway passenger car where passengers ride
2. a vehicle with wheels drawn by one or more horses
3. baby buggy
4. characteristic way of bearing one's body; the style or characteristic pose: "she has good carriage"
5. a machine part that carries something else
6. the wooden structure upon which the tube of a gun, howitzer, or mortar was placed for use
7. platform upon which cars, men or material are lowered and raised in a shaft
8. transportation of natural gas by a pipeline as a separate service for a fee
9. invoiced at cost

(You're kidding.)

cart

1. a heavy open wagon usually having two wheels and drawn by an animal
2. another term for sulky: "a light cart"
3. haul: draw slowly or heavily: "he carts stones"
4. handcart: wheeled vehicle pushed by a person
5. transport something in a cart: "he carts it around"
6. plastic shell holding a continuous loop of audio tape used by radio broadcasters for short, frequently-needed sound elements
7. short for Cartridge, the cartridge is what games come on
8. Championship Auto Racing Teams: champ cars are single seat, open cockpit race cars capable of reaching speeds of over 200 mph

(Why?)

cup

1. United States liquid unit equal to 8 fluid ounces
2. the quantity a cup will hold: "he borrowed a cup of sugar"
3. a small open container usually used for drinking; usually has a handle
4. large metal vessel with two handles awarded as a trophy to the winner of a competition
5. any cup-shaped concavity; "bees filled the wax cups with honey"
6. the hole (or metal container in the hole) on a golf green: "put the flag in the cup"
7. form into the shape of a cup: "she cupped her hands"
8. put into a cup: "cup the milk"
9. treat by applying evacuated cups to the patient's skin
10. remnants of a veil surrounding the base of certain mushrooms
11. cup-shaped plant organ
12. slight depression normally present in the part of the optic nerve that can be seen by looking inside the eye
13. athletic supporter a man wears to provide added protection for his family jewels

(Stop it.)

deck

1. any of various platforms built into a vessel
2. street name for a packet of illegal drugs
3. be beautiful to look at: "flowers deck the tables"
4. decorate: "deck the halls with holly"
5. pack of 52 playing cards
6. a porch that resembles the deck on a ship
7. knock down with force: "she decked her opponent"
8. top surface of a bridge which carries the traffic
9. the flat standing surface of a skateboard
10. closed in area over the bow/stem of a canoe or kayak
11. the orders for purchase or sale of futures or option contracts held by a floor broker
12. small headline running below the main headline; also called a drop head

(Seriously, stop reading!)

delivery

1. act of delivering or distributing something (as goods or mail): "his reluctant delivery of bad news"
2. the event of giving birth to a child
3. characteristic style or manner of speaking: "his delivery is abrupt"
4. voluntary transfer of something (title or possession) from one party to another
5. pitch: (baseball) the act of throwing a baseball by a pitcher to a batter
6. rescue: recovery or preservation from loss or danger: "deliver us from evil"
7. printing: area of the press where the freshly printed sheets are piled as they leave the impression section

finger

1. feel or handle with the fingers: "finger the binding of the book"
2. any of the terminal members of the hand (sometimes excepting the thumb)
3. search for on the computer; "I fingered my boss and found that he's not logged on in the afternoons"
4. a linear measurement based on the length of breadth of a finger
5. one of the parts of a glove that provides covering for a finger or thumb
6. indicate the fingering for the playing of musical scores for keyboard instruments
7. long, narrow extensions from the main body of a fire
8. to raise the middle digit as a gesture of insult: "she gave him the finger"
9. region of long, thin lakes in New York: "the Finger Lakes"

(What, still here?)

heart

1. the locus of feelings and intuitions: "in your heart you know it's true"
2. hollow muscular organ located behind the sternum and between the lungs; its rhythmic contractions move blood through the body
3. a firm, rather dry variety of meat (usually beef or veal)
4. the courage to carry on: "you haven't got the heart for baseball"
5. center: an area that is approximately central within some larger region: "they went into the heart of the struggle"
6. kernel; the choicest, most essential, most vital part of an idea or experience; "the heart of the story"
7. an inclination or tendency of a certain kind: "he had a change of heart"
8. a shape: "a valentine heart"
9. affection: a positive feeling of liking; "the child won everyone's heart"
10. a playing card in the major suit with one or more red hearts on it
11. popular rock band of the 1970s fronted by two sisters, Ann and Nancy Wilson
12. concept from Traditional Chinese Medicine to describe a set of interrelated parts rather than an anatomical organ
13. Biblical symbol: the heart as metaphor of the moral core of a human being; includes the intellect and not just the emotion
14. the seat in the human body of buddhic consciousness, corresponding to the anahata chakra which is ruled by the planet Venus

(Jeepers.)

hit

1. cause to move by striking: "hit a ball"
2. come into sudden contact with: "she hit her elbow on the table"
3. affect or afflict suddenly, usually adversely: "we were hit by bad weather"
4. deal a blow to, either with the hand or with an instrument: "she hit him in the butt"
5. reach a destination, either real or abstract: "we'll hit Detroit by noon"
6. reach a point in time, or a certain state or level; "the thermometer hit 100°"
7. shoot: hit with a missile from a weapon
8. cause to experience suddenly: "an interesting idea hit me"
9. strike: make a strategic, offensive, assault against an enemy, opponent, or a target
10. hit the intended target or goal
11. successful stroke in an athletic contest (especially in baseball); "Big Papi has another hit"
12. produce by manipulating keys or strings of musical instruments, also metaphorically: "he hit a sour note"
13. encounter by chance: "my car hit a deer"
14. a conspicuous success: "the party was a hit"
15. score: gain points in a game: "she hit .300 in the season"
16. consume to excess: "hit the bottle"
17. collision: (physics) a brief event in which two or more bodies come together; "the collision of particles resulted in an exchange of energy and a change of direction"
18. a dose of a narcotic drug
19. murder: "the mafia boss ordered a hit on her enemy"
20. pay unsolicited and usually unwanted sexual attention to: "he tries to hit on women in bars"
21. a unit of measurement for quantifying traffic to a website: "Google gets many hits to its website"
22. an impression from a stamping die
23. in Blackjack, to take another card from the dealer
24. to make a hand or catch cards that improve one's hand: "I hit a gut-shot draw on the river"

(Addicted to boredom is what you are.)

horse

1. solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped domesticated since prehistoric times
2. a padded gymnastic apparatus on legs
3. cavalry: troops trained to fight on horseback: "500 horse led the attack"
4. sawhorse: a framework for holding wood that is being sawed
5. knight: a chessman shaped to resemble the head of a horse; can move two squares horizontally and one vertically (or vice versa)
6. provide with a horse or horses
7. the basketball game Horse is played on a half-court
8. have fun as in a youthful and physical way: "they horsed around"
9. play horse: a big person gets on their hands and knees, a kid sits atop and rides around as if on a horse; often between parent and young child
10. scratchy sounding voice: "she sounds horse"
11. one of the 12-year cycle of animals in the zodiac related to the Chinese calendar
12. in horse racing, an ungelded male at least 4 years old
13. term used in Yorkshire for the horse haulage contractors that towed the keels on the canals
14. in dreams, a powerful animal representing noble and forthright actions; can also represent work
15. in mining, barren rock interrupting a vein of ore
16. nickname for heroin, also sometimes called "junk"
17. another term for the stringer or supporting member of the staircase
18. favorite animal of most little girls

(Yawn.)

house

1. a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families
2. an official assembly having legislative powers: "House and Senate"
3. building where something is sheltered or located: "they had a large carriage house"
4. family: a social unit living together: "I waited until the whole house was asleep"
5. building where theater or cinema is presented: "the house is full"
6. audience gathered together in a theatre or cinema or circus: "the house applauded"
7. firm: members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments: "he worked for a brokerage house"
8. aristocratic family line: "the House of York"
9. the members of a religious community living together
10. play in which children take the roles of father or mother or children and pretend to interact like adults: "the children played house"
11. sign of the zodiac: (astrology) one of 12 equal areas into which the zodiac is divided; these depend more on the time and place of birth than on the birth date
12. contain or cover: "this box houses the gears"
13. provide housing for: "immigrants were housed outside of town"
14. the management of a gambling house or casino: "the house gets a percentage of every bet"
15. house music: styles of electronic dance music, the earliest beginning in the early- to mid- 1980s
16. house system: traditional feature of British, Australian and Hong Kong schools, similar to the collegiate system of a university
17. House, M.D. is an American television series, an hour-long medical drama

(So, what are you up to this weekend?)

place

1. topographic point: "this is a nice place for a picnic"
2. put into a certain place or abstract mental location: "place the pen in this box", "he has a special place in my thoughts"
3. any area set aside for a particular purpose: "who owns this place?"
4. place somebody in a particular situation or location: "he was placed on probation"
5. assign a rank or rating to: "the restaurant is highly placed in the food guide"
6. general vicinity: "she comes from a place near Chicago"
7. stead: the post/function customarily served by another: "can you go in my place?"
8. to arrange for: "place a phone call"
9. a particular situation: "if you were in my place what would you do?"
10. take a place in a competition: "Jerry placed third in the race"
11. an item on a list or in a sequence: "moved from third to fifth place"
12. finish second or better in a horse or dog race; "he bet $2 on number six to place"
13. home: where you live at a particular time: "your place or mine?"
14. position: a job in an organization: "he occupied a post in the treasury"
15. identify: recognize; establish the identity of someone or something; "I couldn't place his face"
16. position: the particular portion of space occupied by something: "he put the lamp back in its place"
17. set: locate: "the film is set in Africa"
18. proper or designated social situation: "he overstepped his place"
19. seat: a space reserved for sitting (as in a theater or on a train or airplane): "she sat in someone else's place"
20. estimate: "we place the time of arrival at 3pm"
21. passage being read: "he lost his place on the page"
22. identify the location or place of: "we localized the source of the infection"
23. proper or appropriate position or location: "a man's place is no longer in the kitchen"
24. invest: make an investment: "put money into bonds"
25. plaza: a public square with room for pedestrians: "Grosvenor Place"
26. sing a note with the correct pitch
27. space: a blank area: "write your name in the space provided"
28. the spot in a mine where a miner works

(You'll probably still be reading this.)

plot

1. plan secretly, usually something illegal: "they plotted against the government"
2. a small area of ground covered by specific vegetation: "a bean plot"
3. sequence of events in a play, book, movie, etc.
4. diagram: make a schematic or technical drawing of that shows how things work or how they are constructed
5. a chart or map showing the movements or progress of an object: "I plotted their progress on the map"
6. to use vector graphics: that is, to draw images with many straight lines, rather than dots
7. a specific area of ground in a cemetery owned by a family or individual; usually contains two or more graves: "our family plot"

(Me, I might go down to that Wellfleet drive-in on Cape Cod. They got the old timey cartoon intermission.)

seat

1. a space reserved for sitting (as in a theater or on a train or airplane)
2. human buttocks
3. show to a seat; assign a seat for: "the host seated me next to Ms. Smith"
4. be able to seat: "the theater seats 2,000"
5. furniture designed for sitting on: "enough seats for all the guests"
6. any support where you can sit (especially the part of a chair or bench on which you sit): "he dusted off the seat before sitting down"
7. induct: place ceremoniously or formally in an office or position
8. center of authority (as a city from which authority is exercised)
9. put a seat on a chair
10. cloth covering for the buttocks; "the seat of his pants was worn through"
11. SEAT: a leading car maker in Spain founded in 1950 as a subsidiary of Fiat
12. the traditional term for membership on a stock exchange
13. a rower's sequential position in the boat; seat positions are numbered from bow to stern; the rower closest to the bow is the One Seat, the next is the Two Seat, and so on
14. a horse rider's posture in the saddle

(And popcorn.)

shoe

1. footwear shaped to fit the foot (below the ankle)
2. card games: device, usually a wooden box, used for holding and dispensing playing cards to be dealt one at a time
3. horseshoe: U-shaped plate nailed to the underside of a horse's hoof
4. brake shoe: a restraint provided on a car or truck to help it break to a stop
5. furnish with shoes: "the children were well shoed"
6. inclined wooden trough which channels grain from the hopper to the centre of the millstone
7. chair: a shaped horizontal bar fitted at the bottom of the chair back, on the rail, and into which the splat is fitted

(I mean, you can't go wrong with popcorn.)

shoot

1. hit with a missile from a weapon
2. kill by firing a missile
3. fire a shot
4. make a film or photograph of something: "shoot a movie"
5. send forth suddenly, intensely, swiftly: "shoot a glance", "dragons shoot fire"
6. dart: run or move hastily: "she shot into the yard"
7. charge: move quickly and violently: "she came shooting into the street"
8. throw or propel in a specific direction or towards a specific objective; "shoot a golf ball"
9. cause a sharp and sudden pain in: "pain shoots up her funnybone"
10. inject: inject a drug intervenously: "he went into the alley to shoot up"
11. variegate by interweaving weft threads of different colors: "shoot cloth"
12. throw dice, as in a crap game
13. fritter: spend frivolously and unwisely: "shot away her inheritance"
14. score: "shot a hockey goal"
15. measure the altitude of by using a sextant: "shoot a star"
16. the fresh young growth of a plant stem: "a potato shoot"
17. the act of shooting at targets: "they hold a shoot every weekend"
18. in professional wrestling, any event during a show that is unplanned and spontaneous: that is, it is real and not staged
19. in mining, to dislodge coal or rock by use of explosives
20. valuable minerals are commonly concentrated in portions of a vein with one dimension much longer than the others; this shoot or "chimney" of ore is usually highly inclined to the horizontal

(Unless you order extra butter.)

show

1. show or demonstrate something to an interested audience: "she shows her dogs"
2. prove: establish the validity of something, as by an example, explanation or experiment
3. testify: give evidence for: "the blood test showed that she was the mother"
4. make visible or noticeable: "show me your drawings"
5. picture; depict: "this scene shows country life"
6. give expression to: "he showed disappointment"
7. indicate a place, direction, person, or thing; either spatially or figuratively: "show me"
8. reveal: make clear and visible
9. read: indicate a certain reading: "the thermometer shows -23°F"
10. act of publicly exhibiting or entertaining: "a remarkable show of skill"
11. something intended to communicate a particular impression; "a show of strength"
12. social event involving public performance: "let's see a Broadway show"
13. usher: show (someone) to their seat, as in theaters or auditoriums
14. appearance: pretending in order to make a good impression: "that ceremony is just for show"
15. finish third or better in a horse or dog race: "she bet $2 on number six to show"
16. the blood-tinged mucus (plug) that is expelled before or at the onset of labor
17. the Australian term for a village, county, state or national fair
18. album by The Cure, recorded live in 1993
19. through: opacity: "her dress shows through"
20. an indication while drilling that hydrocarbons are present in the well

(That yellow oily sauce is nasty.)

track

1. path: a line or route along which something travels or moves
2. lead: evidence pointing to a possible solution; "police follow a promising lead"
3. pair of parallel rails providing a runway for railway cars and other vehicles to roll on
4. racetrack: a course over which races are run
5. cut: a distinct selection of music from a recording or a compact disc: "the title track of the album"
6. a groove on a phonograph record
7. computer science: one of the circular magnetic paths on a magnetic disk that serve as a guide for writing and reading data
8. metal belt on which tracked vehicles (tanks) move over the ground
9. carry on the feet and deposit: "track mud into the house"
10. observe or plot the moving path of something: "track a missile"
11. traverse: travel across or pass over: "the caravan covered almost 100 miles each day"
12. the act of participating in an athletic competition involving running on a track
13. rolling the camera on a specially designed trolley that runs on tracks

(Nasty like yo momma's summer ear wax.)

well

1. in a good or proper or satisfactory manner or to a high standard: "the party went well"
2. thoroughly or completely; fully: "well understood", "shake well before using"
3. high probability: "I might well do it"
4. entirely or fully: "a book well worth reading"
5. favorably; with approval: "she thought well of the book"
6. to a great extent or degree: "the film is well over budget"
7. a deep hole or shaft dug or drilled to obtain water,oil, gas, or brine
8. with prudence or propriety: "you would do well to say nothing more"
9. a cavity or vessel used to contain liquid
10. an enclosed compartment in a ship or plane for holding something
11. with skill or in a pleasing manner: "she writes well"
12. in good health especially after having suffered illness or injury: "appears to be entirely well"
13. in a manner affording benefit or advantage: "she married well"
14. abundant source: "she's a well of information"
15. good: resulting favorably: "all's well that ends well"
16. in financial comfort: "they live well"
17. open shaft through the floors of a building (as for a stairway)
18. come up, as of a liquid; "tears well in his eyes"
19. wise or advantageous and hence advisable: "it would be well to start early"
20. without unusual distress or resentment; with good humor: "took the joke well"
21. Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (or The WELL): one of the oldest virtual communities still online
22. a vertical, cylindrical trunk in the ship, running all the way down to the lowest part of the ship; through it the pipes of the bilge pumps pass
23. ads stacked along both edges of the page, forming a deep trough for stories in the middle
24. the container at the bottom of the machine where winning coins fall
25. the space (horizontal distance) between the flights of a stair

(Congratulations. Even I didn't read down this far.)

window

1. windowpane: a pane of glass in a window
2. framework that contains a glass windowpane to admit light or air
3. a transparent panel (as of an envelope) inserted in an otherwise opaque material
4. an opening that resembles a window in appearance or function: "viewed through a window in the trees"
5. time period considered best for starting or finishing something: "they had a window of an hour in which to succeed"
6. computer science: rectangular part of a computer screen that contains a display different from the rest of the screen
7. astronomy: an atmosphere can have a window for portions of the electromagnetic spectrum; that is, those wavelengths which pass through the atmosphere are said to "pass through a window"
8. Window was the WWII UK codename for a system called "chaff", intended to confuse German radar
9. period of time that investors are willing to participate in underwritings
10. a thin sheet of material covering the end of a radiation detector through which radiation can enter with minimal absorption

Phew! We's done.

For the backstory on why I'm doing this, read my previous post, I Can Learn To Be Funny?