Mark Cunningham
[future word]
__________. 1. a sequel to a popular film made with a lower budget and a different director. 2. to
continue to write the previous year on checks, official forms, etc., for two months into the new
year. 3. the average temperature of hot chocolate served in a coffeehouse or at a coffee stand.
4. magnetic flux density remaining in a ferromagnetic substance when the saturating field is
reduced to zero. 5. to always choose answer B in a multiple-choice test.
[future word]
__________. 1. the state of energy of a fly that, when swatted at and missed, shifts to another spot
on the window pane, but never moves to another surface. 2. the periodic vibrations of atoms,
ions, or molecules in a crystal lattice about their mean positions. 3. a measure of the relative
similarity of composition of two samples. 4. a driver who changes lanes every fifteen seconds.
[future word]
__________. 1. an annual meteor shower, of relatively low activity, the twin radiants of which lie
in the constellation of Taurus. 2. to drink straight from the can to avoid the “is the glass half
empty or half full” question. 3. a professional athlete who spends his entire career in the
minor leagues or lower divisions.
[future word]
__________. 1. the second-largest constellation in the sky, lying near Pegasus near the celestial
equator. 2. any of several large, chiefly terrestrial and ground-running birds of the family
Otididae, of the old world and Australia, related to the cranes. 3. a process of investment
in which a refractory mold is built up around a pattern of wax and then baked so as to melt
and drain off the wax. 4. to use a synonym for a word you can almost, but not quite, think
of at the moment of speaking or writing.
[future word]
__________. 1. the fruiting body of the rust fungi that bears urediospores. 2. a device that produces
slowed but otherwise undistorted recordings of sounds, especially human speech. 3. a room
set aside for committee meetings. 4. the lowest “on” setting of a three-way bulb, which
continues to work after the middle and highest settings have burned out. 5. a pseudo-random
number.
[future word]
__________. 1. a hawk captured during its migration. 2. the lowest of a deck of diving boards,
usually 1 meter above the surface of the water. 3. fear of spontaneous combustion. 4. to claim
that an object or discourse is “always already” what one wishes it to be. 5. trademark.
a brand of phenobarbital.
[future word]
__________. 1. a spiral that is attached to a circular disc and, when rotating, appears to be
continuously expanding from its center or contracting towards its center depending on the
direction of rotation. After being observed for several seconds, it induces a powerful
opposite motion after-effect in which an object or surface that is fixated appears to be
expanding or contracting, so that a person’s face (for example) appears to enlarge or
shrink while remaining paradoxically the same size. 2. to check your daily horoscope only
at the end of the day.
[future word]
__________. 1. a person who is attractive in the location where he or she is frequently seen, such as
a laundry mat or a bookstore, but whose attractiveness fades when either the attracting or
the attracted person is no longer in that location. 2. a waveform in which the variable
increases uniformly with time for a fixed period, then drops sharply to its initial value,
and then repeats the sequence periodically. 3. another name for binocular rivalry.
[future word]
__________. 1. to do a good deed by accident, but still to consider yourself as having acted with
superior moral insight. 2. to fall asleep while watching a film or television program, only
to wake up during the closing credits.
Among his few books, Mark Cunningham has two from Otoliths: 80 Beetles and Helicotremors. A new chapbook, Alphabetical Basho, is on the Beard of Bees site.
He writes: "Each of these pieces is an entry in a dictionary of future words, or rather a gathering of meanings that have started to draw together, but whose word has not yet formed, and what is or will be connotation and what denotation hasn’t been settled yet. Thus, some of the definitions or elements of them may seem more “linked” than other parts: if the definitions to fit together without surprise, they wouldn’t be part of a future dictionary, because there would probably be a word for that group of meanings now. Emerson’s idea that all words are forgotten metaphors (window = wind eye) is in the background here, though it is not an over-riding guide. The “definitions” fall near the middle (I hope) of the metaphor/settled dictionary definition continuum."
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__________. 1. a sequel to a popular film made with a lower budget and a different director. 2. to
continue to write the previous year on checks, official forms, etc., for two months into the new
year. 3. the average temperature of hot chocolate served in a coffeehouse or at a coffee stand.
4. magnetic flux density remaining in a ferromagnetic substance when the saturating field is
reduced to zero. 5. to always choose answer B in a multiple-choice test.
__________. 1. the state of energy of a fly that, when swatted at and missed, shifts to another spot
on the window pane, but never moves to another surface. 2. the periodic vibrations of atoms,
ions, or molecules in a crystal lattice about their mean positions. 3. a measure of the relative
similarity of composition of two samples. 4. a driver who changes lanes every fifteen seconds.
__________. 1. an annual meteor shower, of relatively low activity, the twin radiants of which lie
in the constellation of Taurus. 2. to drink straight from the can to avoid the “is the glass half
empty or half full” question. 3. a professional athlete who spends his entire career in the
minor leagues or lower divisions.
__________. 1. the second-largest constellation in the sky, lying near Pegasus near the celestial
equator. 2. any of several large, chiefly terrestrial and ground-running birds of the family
Otididae, of the old world and Australia, related to the cranes. 3. a process of investment
in which a refractory mold is built up around a pattern of wax and then baked so as to melt
and drain off the wax. 4. to use a synonym for a word you can almost, but not quite, think
of at the moment of speaking or writing.
__________. 1. the fruiting body of the rust fungi that bears urediospores. 2. a device that produces
slowed but otherwise undistorted recordings of sounds, especially human speech. 3. a room
set aside for committee meetings. 4. the lowest “on” setting of a three-way bulb, which
continues to work after the middle and highest settings have burned out. 5. a pseudo-random
number.
__________. 1. a hawk captured during its migration. 2. the lowest of a deck of diving boards,
usually 1 meter above the surface of the water. 3. fear of spontaneous combustion. 4. to claim
that an object or discourse is “always already” what one wishes it to be. 5. trademark.
a brand of phenobarbital.
__________. 1. a spiral that is attached to a circular disc and, when rotating, appears to be
continuously expanding from its center or contracting towards its center depending on the
direction of rotation. After being observed for several seconds, it induces a powerful
opposite motion after-effect in which an object or surface that is fixated appears to be
expanding or contracting, so that a person’s face (for example) appears to enlarge or
shrink while remaining paradoxically the same size. 2. to check your daily horoscope only
at the end of the day.
__________. 1. a person who is attractive in the location where he or she is frequently seen, such as
a laundry mat or a bookstore, but whose attractiveness fades when either the attracting or
the attracted person is no longer in that location. 2. a waveform in which the variable
increases uniformly with time for a fixed period, then drops sharply to its initial value,
and then repeats the sequence periodically. 3. another name for binocular rivalry.
__________. 1. to do a good deed by accident, but still to consider yourself as having acted with
superior moral insight. 2. to fall asleep while watching a film or television program, only
to wake up during the closing credits.
Among his few books, Mark Cunningham has two from Otoliths: 80 Beetles and Helicotremors. A new chapbook, Alphabetical Basho, is on the Beard of Bees site.
He writes: "Each of these pieces is an entry in a dictionary of future words, or rather a gathering of meanings that have started to draw together, but whose word has not yet formed, and what is or will be connotation and what denotation hasn’t been settled yet. Thus, some of the definitions or elements of them may seem more “linked” than other parts: if the definitions to fit together without surprise, they wouldn’t be part of a future dictionary, because there would probably be a word for that group of meanings now. Emerson’s idea that all words are forgotten metaphors (window = wind eye) is in the background here, though it is not an over-riding guide. The “definitions” fall near the middle (I hope) of the metaphor/settled dictionary definition continuum."
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