IAtionary: Portmantastic

Port-man-tas-tic [port-man-TAS-tik] adj.

1. Of or related to a well done or entertaining combination of two words; Have you guys seen xkcd.com/739? It's portmantastic!
2. Demonstrating the ability to improvise new and interesting combinations of words; A: So, do you think Kurt and Blaine will get together? B: I hope so, Klaine is so adorable! A: Ooo, portmantastic!

Antonym: Port-man-ter-ri-ble [port-man-TER-rih-buhl] adj.

1. Of or relating to a poorly-constructed combination of words; I keep trying to find a way to portmanteau "IA" and "Oberlin" but there are too many vowels at the beginning...it's portmanterrible!



It's been half a year since I've posted on OAIA, and I'll admit it feels weird to have been away for so long. Things are going great for me at Oberlin, and I thought I'd come back and share a little of my new, expanded vocabulary. You see, by complete accident I ended up living just downstairs from Sci-Fi Hall, an entire hall full of sci-fi fans, nerdy references and all the video games. I learned to speak Sci-Fi Hall pretty quickly, and a lot of the new words were either references that I needed to catch up on or awesomely meta words like "portmantastic." (Like, hey, did you know there's a word for "self-referential"? Yeah, it's "meta," like metalanguage or metaknowledge. The word on its own is still a neologism, but I love it nonetheless.) Anyway, I thought this would be an appropriate addition to the IA lexicon if it hasn't appeared independently in my absence, so I thereby justify putting it in the IAtionary.

Now let's address the other issue at hand; in the half a year, not counting semi-forced introductions, there has been one post. In total, I've written 97.5% of the posts in existence, though I've had sole ownership for about 80% of the time. And I'm 1/9 of the Task Force, so counting the time of each person separately, only 57% of the time has been mine. (See, I can still do math at 3:30 in the morning; I'm on college time.) Anyway, OAIATF people, I hope you pick it up a little. Meanwhile, I think I'll start posting once in a while again. I can't promise any regularity, but this has been fun and I've missed it. Obviously it won't be specifically IA stuff, but I'll pick out what I think applies best when I have time.

Calculator Fun!

First I'd like to say happy new year!  Congrats to me for being the first to post something cool now that Josh isn't updating.  I don't really have a story to this post, but I do have an explanation....of sorts.  So over a few weeks in Math Studies, I have taken pictures of some pretty cool calculator drawings that Zach Rich has created.  I believe the first one was Pikachu and then came the pokeball, followed by Jigglypuff and then the Dreamworks symbol.  Well, math is usually very easy, so many of us don't really pay attention to lectures and this is what we do to occupy our time.