Propensity, Mac Tips, and an Obscure Reference
Posted by Sam at 5:34 PM | tags: life, apple

I woke up this morning muttering the word propensity. I don't know why. In fact, at that point I only had a vague understanding of the word's definition. But, like any good Mac user, I queried the OS X dictionary and found the entry for propensity (as an aside, specific to my Mac using readers (you guys are my favorite... by the way), you can hover your cursor over any word in any cocoa application and press control + command + d to produce a little pop-up window with the word's definition and, by means of another click, the word's thesaurus entry. Are you using Safari? Give it a try on any word in this post. It's quite handy. Oh... and check this out: type the first few characters of a word (again, cocoa apps only... try something like TextEdit) and then press the escape key. Up pops a scrollable list of all the words in the Mac OS X dictionary that begin with those characters. Definitely a godsend for those of us who can hardly spell their own names. Sm? Sma? Steve? Wait... who am I again?).

The word, propensity, stuck with me all throughout this morning's events... which included, but was not limited to: milling around the house, partaking in a short hike, lunch, tormenting my housemate... Finally, I asked Carrie (my housemate) to define the word. Shortly afterward, I realized that she simply can't be trusted (Carrie, you know I love you... I just can't trust you). That's when I consulted the Mac OS dictionary. Its entry reads: an inclination or natural tendency to behave in a particular way. (Dammit Carrie! I hate it when you're right!)

Hmm... so what does this mean? It's got to be significant in some way... right? I have a propensity to believe that it's significant. The propensiocity of my beliefs are such that this occurrence must be significant. I have a propensity to make up my own word derivatives out of words that I have, at best, a rough understanding of. This is quite a propensidicament.

Anyway, as a Magic: The Gathering dork* summons a 5/5 Shivan Dragon into play, I summon the collective strength of the blogosphere to help me out with this one. I've tapped my mana, now it's up to you. So what's the deal with the word propensity? Why has it been following me around all day? Help!

* There was a time, many years ago, when I would have considered myself to be a Magic: The Gatering dork. So, before anyone chastises me for calling Magic: The Gathering players, dorks, bear in mind that I was their self-proclaimed king... and the inhabitants of my kingdom and I were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, dorks. We were the dorkliest dorks that ever dorked. And in 1995, when I was finally booted out of my kingdom (for having a girlfriend, I think), the dorkiocity of my people was stronger than ever. So, I can only assume that dorkliness still reigns supreme in the Magic: The Gathering kingdom. And there you have it.

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I too once played Magic and have since returned to it because it is still fun. I admit to everyone I know that I'm a total dork(I prefer nerd), but I have a girlfriend too and she just laughs at me.

Comment By Dustin on January 31, 2006 1:17 AM

sam.


we need to play magic.

now.





please bring counterfeit cards.


-tim





ps - god, how sad is it that my only "website" is myspace.

Comment By tim on March 05, 2006 8:51 PM