Thunder Chunder Page

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The 1592 Thunder Chunder Synonyms is what you have been looking for Listen to the MP3 (it's HUGE) and 30 minutes long.	You can make up your own synonyms with Roll Yer Own
Related and other sites with a similar sense of humour can be found in Demented Links	The Story Behind it All will tell you how and why I managed to accumulate a list of over 1,500 synonyms for vomiting
As though one language weren't enough. Try it en Français	Another kind of art, the Thunder Chunder list is now a trendy style of literature pioneered by Kenneth Goldsmith read (aloud, if you can) Chundersong 1592 available in PDF for your printing pleasure
*Completing the Square*does it for you. Over 400 synthetic combinations.

Hysterical Notes

August 25, 2003. I've been busier than usual but the synonyms keep calling my name. There have been only about a dozen new individual submission in the past two years. Folks don't seem to be able to find me on GeoCities. There are still many links to previous addresses while the copycats abound. GeoCities is also becoming annoying--they dropped the free FTP so it's really difficult to publish FrontPage sites to it.

New additions still crop up in ones and twos and hundreds. People still send in the odd suggestion but in August 2003, a quick Google check found www.vomit.com (visit at your own risk!) with almost 300 new synonyms. This gave me enough initiative to spend a few hours to clean up old the list and incorporate the new ones.

The additions continue the tradition of eclecticism. They can be as ridiculous or cunning as any of the previous ones. A couple of new trends are discernable:

	more non-English,
	more onomatopoeic,
	allusions to song and film titles ("a belch too far", "Purple Rain", "Monster Mash", etc.) and
	"completing the square", that is, creating new combinations from old ones ("pavement asterisks", "lawn asterisks", "road asterisks", etc.). (See: Completing the Square: Synthetic Synonyms)

With these extensions, it is possible that the "Bordt Law" (vomit synonyms increase linearly at 150 per year) will hold true for at least the next decade.

The biggest addition is the Speaking Thunder Chunder List. Carol, our British speech-synthesized robot rips through the list in less than an hour. Sorry about the quality--adding spaces or slowing down the speech makes the file REALLY big.

I had been mulling over the idea of getting someone to make a voice recording of the synonyms. Nobody could get too fat into the list before cracking up and spoiling the recording. Then came along some nice text-to-speech software that just begged to be put to creative use. There is now an MP3 file of "Carol" speaking the whole list in a nice proper British accent.

I have nominated Ralph Earl (American, 1721-1801) as the patron artist of the Thunder Chunder list.

December 2001. NOT AGAIN!! So excite@home goes under and Rogers decides to go it alone. Not only the web address changes this time but the e-mail address as well. Good thing I kept a mirror on GeoCities. I don't think I'll bother converting to the Rogers hosting service. To avoids some kinds of confusion, I'll link to my sites from www.bordt.com.

Sometime in 2001. The Open Directory Project is taken over by extremists (librarians, I think): my directories are reorganized several times, I get demands to "DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT", I ignore the über-editors for a few weeks and they toss me out. I haven't been able to get back in since.

August 14, 2001. After 3 years on WebJump, they announced they are shutting down (as is ListBot). Several hours later, the site is transferred to the site's fourth location in 5 years (http://members.home.com/mbordt) but that doesn't last long.

March 19, 1999. Sorry for the absence. Kids are growing up. The chunder list has been updated with 108 new and 103 changed synonyms. Chundersong has been updated to version 1277.

In the interim NewHoo was bought by NetScape and was renamed to the Open Directory Project. It's still the same folks but now some of them have real jobs. This site is still considered "cool" [Update 2003: the site isn't listed anymore].

Aug. 2, 1998. A new work of art! Kenneth Goldsmith spent a year counting the syllables for a book he wrote called "No. lll 2.7.93-10.20.96" (that's "One hundred and eleven"). See the Demented Links page for directions. The counting was important because the 669 page book starts with words and phrases in order of number of syllables and in alphabetic order. The reason I ran into it is that the words "Thunder Chunder" appear in Chapter 4 of this magna opus. So I got to thinking, the chunder list is a pretty good source of English language words and phrases that can be sorted and manipulated. Instead of a year counting syllables, I spent 10 minutes writing an awk script to break each of the chunder synonyms into all possible subsets and ordering them by number of syllables and order in the alphabet. The result is an 18-page stream of consciousness and much, much more. I call it, Chundersong 1035.

July 30, 1998. We got theMiningCompany (now about.com) to update their links to an outdated chunder list.

July 17, 1998: You've seen the best , now see the rest at: ODP Recreation/Humor/Jokes/Tasteless

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Hysterical Notes