Kenju at Imagine what I’m leaving out responding to a meme wrote
If you have read here for even a short while, you know that I am a pack rat. Faced with the prospect of cleaning out years of accumulation (ours, my parent’s and my aunt’s), I grow weak in the knees.
How come I had never heard the expression pack rat? It explained itself from the rest of the sentence.
Now for brownout. This is one I found at Millie Garfield‘s blog, in which she explained that she had been unable to connect to the Internet for a while, because of brownouts…
I had no idea that that’s what those were called. Of course, I was familiar with blackouts, but brownouts, a milder version, no doubt, I didn’t know. And yet, we do have those lower levels of electricity happening here, they are supposedly what shortens electric bulbs lifespan and get halogene lamps to burn out faster.
Finally, I just wanted to signal Some Christmas logodaedaly a post by Autolycus, which really cracked me up, a sheer heaven of new words,
Incidentally, looking up Autolycus, I found that it meant “lone wolf” in Greek. Correct me if I am wrong 
Claude, I am happy to be the bearer of new word(s) for you – and thanks for the link to Autolycus.
you might be interested in the Word A Day e-mail from http://wordsmith.org!
I just picked the name up as a way of allowing myself to write a blog without any other theme, overlooking the fact that Shakespeare’s Autolycus was a “snapper up” of other people’s property. It never occurred to me (and I think A Winter’s Tale was a set book at school!) that Shakespeare was making a Greek pun when he named Autolycus – thanks for that. You don’t know how appropriate that makes the name, but that’s another story.
I’m a little lost with all the erudition. Like I wrote on Autolycus, “whatsiwhosit” is a BIG word for me. I’m not even sure if I spell it right, and I certainly can’t pronounce the Hs…But I will try Word A Day suggested by tut-tut. The problem will probably be with whom to use it. Well… now that I peruse blogs, I can send faraway people to a dictionary without anyone throwing it at me!
I’m a pack rat, too, but I’m trying to recover.
I’ve printed this post and folded it up neatly and put it away with all the others where I’ll keep it forever and ever…
Let me tell you, I am just the opposite of a pack rat and throw too many things away. Sometimes I wish I were a little bit more of a pack rat!
I know just what Kenju is talking about. I’ve got a lot of ‘weeding out’ to do too. I’m trying not to be so much of a pack rat…
I am not a pack rat. Like you, I tend not to keep much. However, I am married to one.
-me the thrower, my husband keeper/pack rat.
-here in the philippines, some people interchangeably use blackout and brownout.