I believe that my wife's cultural lens and mine see "Karma" in extremely different lights, which makes me question: What do people think "Karma" means?

karma: Definition and Much More from Answers.com (excerpt):

1. The explanation of karma can differ per tradition. Usually it is believed to be a sum of all that an individual has done, is currently doing and will do. The results or "fruits" of actions are called karma-phala. Karma is not about retribution, vengeance, punishment or reward; karma simply deals with what is. The effects of all deeds actively create past, present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy it brings to others. In religions that incorporate reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well. It is cumulative.
2. karma is referred to as karmic dirt, as it consists of very subtle and microscopic particles i.e. pudgala that pervade the entire universe. Karmas are attracted to the karmic field of a soul on account of vibrations created by activities of mind, speech and body as well as on account of various mental dispositions. Hence the karmas are the subtle matter surrounding the consciousness of a soul. When these two components i.e. consciousness and karma interact, we experience the life as we know it at present.
3. The idea of karma was popularized in the Western world through the work of the Theosophical Society. Kardecist and Western New Age reinterpretations of karma frequently cast it as a sort of luck associated with virtue: if one does good or spiritually valuable acts, one deserves and can expect good luck; conversely, if one does harmful things, one can expect bad luck or unfortunate happenings. In this conception, karma is affiliated with the Neopagan law of return or Threefold Law, the idea that the beneficial or harmful effects one has on the world will return to oneself. Colloquially this may be summed up as 'what goes around comes around.'

Which is your take? Or do you have all together different one?

Please think about your answer before reading mine...

I think I'm very much in the #3 camp. I think Karma has entered the Western group conciousness as a quick explanation of "what goes around comes around" without placing any emphasis on the force behind that concept: IE: God, Nature, Majik, etc. And that the entire concept of reincarnation is absent in the Western (though possibly just American) basic understanding.

Discuss.

[ Exempt Those Exams! ]

See, I told you jank is a real word. Now someone tell squankous...

Dear Word Detective: I am having an argument with my brother. He insists that the phrase "out of pocket" refers to expenditure from one's own resources, with the expectation of later reimbursement. I contend that one is "out of pocket" when one cannot be reached, is outside of the place where one can contact or be contacted...

...the bottom line is that you're both right, although your brother is a bit more likely to be clearly understood when he uses "out of pocket."

[ Previous Columns/Posted 01/20/00 ]

Well, I haven't started arguing yet, but I've noticed that Mikah has been using the phrase a lot, and now it seems Andy has too. I agree with the above guys brother. Out of Pocket means that you have to expense something and get reimbursed later. A second possible meaning is that you have used all of your pocket up and there is no more. How it could mean unreachable, I just don't know.

I wonder how you just read that. I read:

My 'o-t&-mO-"bEl and 'mO-b&l phone allow me to be 'mO-"bIl. (pronunciation guide).

And I'm guessing that most Americans, excepting Southerners, would do similar. I'm also guessing that most English speakers outside of the US would not.

Why? I don't know the answer to that, Yaty, however I will agree that it is totally inconsistent.

Ah yes,

pregnant (comparative more pregnant, superlative most pregnant)

1. (not used in the comparative or superlative) Carrying developing offspring within the body.
2. Having many possibilities or implications.

Synonyms

• (carrying developing offspring):
  • (standard): expecting, expecting a baby, gravid (of animals only), with child, fertilized
  • (colloquial/slang): eating for two, having a bun in the oven, in the family way, knocked up, up the duff
  • (euphemistic): in an interesting condition
• (having many possibilities or implications): meaningful, significant

[ pregnant - Wiktionary ]

Up the what? Apparently UK slang. I'm sure there is more ways than this to suggest that someone is preggers.

There are a number of colloquialisms for pregnancy, usually regional. The action of impregnating a woman or girl is called 'knocking (her) up' in Canada and some parts of the U.S., and the state of being pregnant 'knocked-up'. The term 'lady-in-waiting', meaning a pregnant woman, is used broadly in the U.S. The word 'gone' or 'along' is used to represent gestational time, e.g. 'she's really far gone' or 'about 6 weeks gone' or 'six months along'. In the southern U.S. the euphemism of a water well is occasionally used to represent pregnancy (e.g. 'drink out of the well', to become pregnant), and a baby almost ready to be delivered is 'on his/her road'. Eastern Seaboard slang describes the woman as being 'in a fix' or, occasionally, 'preggers'; the Southern U.S. equivalent is 'in the family way'. An alternate term not slang or colloquial is 'with child'. 'Having a bun in the oven' is another frequently used phrase to indicate that a woman is pregnant. In Australia, it is commonly held that a pregnant woman is "up the duff".

[ Wikipedia via Answers.com ]

That cleared that up, espeically that "drink out of the well" bit that makes no sense...

Wait, what the freak is a dibs?

Dibs ... is a common convention used among friends or siblings to reserve or declare full or partial ownership of a community resource, such as a chair or communal food. As an example, when deciding who gets prime seating in front of a television, if there is one chair that is particularly desirable, an interested party can call "dibs" on that chair; as long as no one has previously called the chair, then it is agreed that the caller is entitled to sit there.

[ Dibs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]

OK, so we now know (since we've all read that wikipedia article) that more rules and thought went into "dibs" then any of us could have cared for, but where does that word come from?

Most writers seize on what seems to be the most relevant older use of dib as a word connected with childhood. This refers to an ancient and very common game known by dozens of other names (jacks, fivestones, knucklebones, hucklebones; pentalithia in classical Rome), though the name dibs is recorded only from the early part of the eighteenth century.

[ Q&A: Dibs ]

Oh, pentalithia! I love that game. Wait, never heard of it. Cool Words points out that pentalithia means five stones. But if it is the pre-cursor to jacks, where did they find the rubber stone?

Wikipedia is the greatest frickfracker that a squankus could hope for:

A placeholder name is used to refer to an object whose name is either irrelevant or unknown in the context which it is being discussed. These placeholders typically function grammatically as nouns—and can be used for people (e.g. John Doe), objects (e.g. Widget), or places (e.g. Timbuktu). They share a property with pronouns because their referents must be supplied by context.

[ Placeholder name - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]

I expect that Billy would recommend it, but I recommend setting aside enough time to really explore the janke.

feisty

1. tenacious, energetic, belligerent, spunky
2. prepared to stand and fight, often despite small stature or lack of strength

[ feisty - Wiktionary ]

The Internet is so helpful. Although I know what words mean, I don't actually have to think about it, I can just look up the definition. I guess this will tempt me to be lazy, and never think, and eventually my brain will atrophy and die, but for now I'm just excited about how helpful this Internet is...

You got to love it when the Straight Dope mocks you:

You know, even in Maine they must have dictionaries.

[ Straight Dope Staff Report: What's the origin of "pumpernickel"? ]

The short answer? German for Goblin Fart or Devil's Fart.

The Internet is bigger:

Third Degree - "intense interrogation by police," 1900, probably a reference to Third Degree of master mason in Freemasonry (1772), the conferring of which included an interrogation ceremony.

[ Online Etymology Dictionary ]

Seriously, where would I have gone 15 years ago to research the things that I can investigate so quickly now?

Look for it in future conversations.

In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and robbed them in broad daylight, with no visible attempt at disguise. He was arrested later that night, less than an hour after videotapes of him taken from surveillance cameras were broadcast on the 11 o'clock news. When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr. Wheeler stared in incredulity. "But I wore the juice," he mumbled. Apparently, Mr. Wheeler was under the impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to videotape cameras ( Fuocco, 1996 ).

[ Unskilled and Unaware of It ]

Props: Gibson.

fratmosphere n. an environment resembling or affiliated with a college fraternity.

[ Double-Tongued Word Wrester Dictionary: fratmosphere ]

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Why the Missouri Compromise? Because it starts with the Mason-Dixon line. Why the Mason-Dixon line? To determine if Henri lives in what would be a slave state in 1850. Why 1850? Because Henri is young and therefore wrong. And how does that impact billed work? Not in a good way...

The strange conversations that Iman and I have in the elevator must amuse our neighbors. Today we've learned the plural of chrysalis:

chrysalis: [ krĭs´ə-lĭs ] n. pl. chrysalises or chrysalides [ krĭ-sǎl´ĭ-dēz' ]

1. A pupa, especially of a moth or butterfly, enclosed in a firm case or cocoon.
2. A protected stage of development.

[Latin chrysallis, from Greek khrusallis, khrusallid-, gold-colored pupa of a butterfly, from khrusos, gold ; see chryso-.]

[ chrysalis - yourDictionary.com - American Heritage Dictionary ]

And reinforced the fact that a chrysalis isn't a cocoon but the stage of development of the critter inside the cocoon.