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I'd like to start a thread for words whose discovery was an occasion of surprise and wonder. I am talking about not only about the thrill that comes with the dilation of the frontiers of the namable world, but also that frisson of discovery, when a word introduces you to an object, phenomenon, concept which had been sitting in front of you all along, but which you might never have otherwise actually noticed. And I'm not necessarily talking about fancy-pants or gimmicky words. Just whatever word has given you a big "ah-ha".
Either you're a word-nerd, and know what I am talking about, or you'd best "tsk tsk" and go elsewhere. But perhaps an example would help, to kick off what will hopefully be an interesting pooling of favourite lexicon:
suprasternal notch (yes, thank you 'The English Patient')
lambdoidal (because A-frame needs a lintel)
palatine uvula (no more "little dangly bit at the back of my throat")
dendroid (it blows "tree-shaped" out of the water)
meniscus (and it's convex if the glass is dry!)
torus (without it we have a theory of a "doughnut-shaped space-time curvature")
noctilucent cloud (google it. they're beautiful cloud)
lenticular image (try explaining this any other way)
lacrimal caruncle (in the lacrimal lake! of course)
linea nigra (every parent will remember this)
pollarded (I walk to work down an arbour of pollarded oaks... only recently learnt it)
garth (where I eat my lunch, surrounded by a cloister)
Anyway, that's my offering... I could go on, but in the sad event this thread bombs, I'll regret wasting my time...
Stag.
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Are there other uvulae in the body besides the roaming one?
TEd
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pollarded: wonder why polled doesn't work.
garth: hadn't heard that word before, but we have one at the other end of town with two small streams running through it. Nice country touch.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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The enclosed garden at the National College of Preachers in Washington, DC, is called the garth.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'm going to swipe the padre's curmudgeon hat here, and say that many of the initial offerings are indeed "fancy pants words" that obscure and impeded communication except in a small group. For clarity of meaning, "tree-shaped" blows "dendroid" out of the water, for example. Some $10 words are beautiful and irreplaceable (like noctilucent), but the amount of time I spend around people who don't have English as their first language predisposes me to preferring 50 cent words, tyvm.
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Umami? I didn't even know there was [THE DELETED PORTION OF THiS POST HAS BEEN DEEMED UNACCEPTABLE BY HOGWASH DECREE]
Thanks for the contribution.
Last edited by Stag_Beetle; 02/26/06 05:38 AM.
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Pooh-Bah
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uh... Stag you might want to delete your last post since it spoils the ongoing game of hogwash in which "umami" is the mystery word. (Unless of course, I am again suffering from irony deafness such as in one of mav's frequent faux-faux-pas.) (link to hogwash game thread)
Last edited by Alex Williams; 02/26/06 05:33 AM.
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Quote:
I'm going to swipe the padre's curmudgeon hat here, and say that many of the initial offerings are indeed "fancy pants words" that obscure and impeded communication...
Then why bother posting at all? Just to pooh-pooh my thread? Don't be so rorirori, heahea, moho, and god damn popohe bro!
I guess one man's ah-ha! is another man's huh?
Last edited by Stag_Beetle; 02/26/06 05:46 AM.
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Quote:
uh...Stag you might want to delete your last post since it spoils the ongoing game of hogwash in which "umami" is the mystery word. (link to hogwash game thread)
Doh!
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'm going to swipe the padre's curmudgeon hat here
1. When do I get my hat back?
2. Is the cranky person who initiated this thread a sock puppet as implied? If so, for which troll?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
2. Is the cranky person who initiated this thread a sock puppet as implied? If so, for which troll?
Well, Stag Beetle's fondness for ad hominem attacks suggests that the possibility is very real. Apparently insulting me in Maaori is supposed to prove something. Quite what, I can't be arsed figuring out.
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Miasma, I love that word. I use it as a synonym for a "bad vibe" that you get from certain places or rooms.
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This thread's going well.
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Quote:
Apparently insulting me in Maori is supposed to prove something.
Arohaina tou hoa kia pena ano i a koe.
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Pooh-Bah
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zeitgeist
schadenfreude
doppelgänger
umbrage
serendipitous
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velocipedstrianisticulostianarianologist
sesquipedalian
quotidian
meretricious (and a happy new year)
TEd
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Quote:
This thread's going well.
See, Stag Beetle, you needn't have gotten mad, now everyone's jumping in and having fun and suppling cool words that they find useful.
Here's mine...
cyclothem : a geological term for a repeating cycle of alternating layers of different types of sedimentary rock.
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pyrethrin
malathion
esfenvalerate
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latrinalia- bathroom graffiti
pseudocyesis- physiological state in which a woman exhibits symptoms of pregnancy but is not pregnant
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addict
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librocubicularist
ferroequinologist
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> ferroequinologist
an expert on steam engines?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
pyrethrin
malathion
esfenvalerate
ROTFL! 
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Pooh-Bah
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Quote:
pyrethrin
malathion
esfenvalerate
Sounds like the first half of a sports cheer ("pyrethrin! malathion! esfenvalerate!..."), one which offers many opportunities for a ribald conclusion.
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> sports cheer
or a possible double dactyl, one.
formerly known as etaoin...
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epicaricacy. The concept that schadenfreude is not just a German phenomenon. 
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Quote:
> ferroequinologist
an expert on steam engines?
Precisely!
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Ha! It makes sense to me now, after having thought about the guy who makes horseshoes (smithy? farrier?). Steam train = iron horse. Good one, E2. Thanks. 
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smiths (smithy's) can make horse shoes, but fitting them to the horse, and shoeing a horse is usually a farrier job.
(SUNY, and a school in Virgina) still offer programs (non degree) to train to be a farrier.
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Pooh-Bah
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gibbous
(and I once met a farrier who specialized in remedial and corrective shoes for horses who were pigeon toed or had other orthopedic deformities.)
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How about ferro=iron? Or am I missing something obvious
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> ferro=iron nope, you're not missing anything. that's it, precisely.
formerly known as etaoin...
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> am I missing something obvious thus proving conclusively that Americans Don't Do Irony
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"ferroequinologist"
I had assumed it was one who was an expert on the US Army's 4th Infantry Division.
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Pooh-Bah
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I thought it was someone who studies the ironic comments of Mr. Ed.
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> I thought it was someone who studies the ironic comments of Mr. Ed.
nay.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
I thought it was someone who studies the ironic comments of Mr. Ed.
XD
good one!
Last edited by mechanesthesia; 03/01/06 11:03 PM.
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Cairn n a mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark, typically on a hilltop or skyline. • a prehistoric burial mound made of stones.
Buddhists build these over the years by each adding rock and making a wish or saying a prayer. They end up almost pyramidical, as the rocks have to get smaller and smaller to prevent toppling the cairn, and sometimes the top becomes a little cone of carefully balanced pebbles.
Also: libretto, tragus, frottage, chelicera, isthmus, alternating figure, brilliant cut diamond, butte, cheek retractors, cycloid, deerstalker hat, electrocardiogram.
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