July 03, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:A Tour of the Word Museum
For Father's day, I received a book called The Word Museum. I've been dipping into it ever since, finding words I want to work into my prose:
- Quodlibetarian - One who talks or disputes on any subject; [from] quodlibet, a nice point, a subtilty [Johnson] SEE sea-lawyer.
- Sea lawyer - an idle litigious 'long-shorer," more given to question orders than to obey them...
We could probably fit 'SEE blogger' into that first definition, no?
- Prinkle - The flesh is said to prinkle when there is a tingling sensation, consequent upon a temporary suspension of the circulation [Mackay]
- Potvaliant - heated with courage from a strong drink.
Like this guy?
- Pogonophobia - A fear of Beards [T. Wright]
..reminds me of Bertie Wooster's shock at on catching sight of "Bingo in the fungus".
- Insufflation - The act of blowing a gas or vapour into a cavity of the body, as when tobacco smoke is injected into the rectum [Hoblyn]
WHAT? You mean 'blowing smoke up my ass' is more than just an expression?
- gardyloo, jordeloo A cry which servants in the higher stories of Edinburgh give, after ten o'clock at night, when they throw their dirty water, &c. from the windows; hence, also used to denote the contents of the vessell. From French, gardez l'eau, save yourselves from the water. [Jamieson]
- fribbler A trifler; a fribbler is one who professes rapture for a woman, and dreads her consent [Johnson]
You get the idea. I occasionally toy with changing my pseudonym, as it's been 18 months since I was dared to post a comment calling me "MINDLES(sic) HEDONIST DRECK". I know that it isn't the most pleasant sounding or easy pseudonym. Surely I can find something good in here - maybe 'quodlibertarian'? On the other hand, what a pain to recode and for all y'all to redo your links.
By the way, if you are wondering about the abundance of daylight posting, I took the day off today. I've had a run and I'm enjoying my lunch and a little time to myself during daylight hours. What a feeling! I love having three kids and a demanding job, but it does get on top of you....
Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at July 3, 2003 01:18 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksI heard a good one yesterday: "word of mouse" - information passed along via the Internet or E-mail. As in the sentence: "Word of mouse has it that Viking Pundit is an awesome blog".
A little end-of-the-workweek humor there.
>>Insufflation
Funny -- William Buckley overlooked this one in his "The Lexicon"
Posted by: todd on July 3, 2003 04:12 PMPogonophobia - A fear of Beards [T. Wright]
This guy is definitely pogonophobigenic.
By the way, if you enjoy The Word Museum, you might enjoy this book, too.
Posted by: Reginleif the Valkyrie on July 4, 2003 09:44 AMSo...those people with unusual sphincter control who can blow smoke rings out their backsides after "smoking" a cigarette with them...are they practicing exsufflation?
Sorry for wasting bandwidth by not compiling all three posts into one. I was up 'til 2:30 last night. But, believe it or not, I wasn't getting potvaliant.
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