|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
What is the most preposterous word you've ever come across?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
Snitzlefrizzle, contributed by Laverne. Well, you didn't say it had to be a real word
Latitudinarian is one of my favorites. Sounds like it should mean a student of of the differences between equatorial and polar areas, but it actually means weak and sickly
Edited to change it to valetudinarian: Someone accorded academic honors for the study
Last edited by dalehileman; 08/18/06 04:11 PM.
dalehileman
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
?and here I thought it had to do with showing latitude in attitude?
from MW-CD: latitudinarian \la-te-tu-den-er-e-en, -tyu-\ noun (1662) : a person who is broad and liberal in standards of religious belief and conduct latitudinarian adjective latitudinarianism \-e-e-ni-zem\ noun (C) 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Inc.
edit: latitudinarianism is fairly preposterous
Last edited by tsuwm; 08/17/06 07:13 PM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
sesquipedalian I love that it serves as it's own example.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Quote:
sesquipedalian I love that it serves as it's own example.
Reminds me of Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.
A fear of long words.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Quote:
Arachibutyrophobia
Ha ha! I had to google that! It's right off the prepostrometer!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
'Twas one of the many things I've learned from tsuwm.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
Thread edited to change it to valetudinarian
dalehileman
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456
addict
|
addict
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456 |
Nonplussed. Its derivation is somewhat logical but appearance is lunatic.
ÅΓª╥┐↕§
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
Quote:
Quote:
Arachibutyrophobia
Ha ha! I had to google that! It's right off the prepostrometer!
Thorry to dithagree with thew. It ith not prepothterouth.
Though it does remind me of the story of the story of the preacher who, during a sermon, said, "And those of you who are adulterers, may your tongue queave to the woof of youh mouf."
TEd
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Arachibutyrophobia.
Why would anybody fear peanut butter?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Quote:
Why would anybody fear peanut butter?
Quote:
Teenager with peanut allergy dies after a kiss. A Quebec teenager with a peanut allergy has died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter sandwich hours earlier. Nov. 26 2005 Link
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
What does peanut butter have to do with spiders?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Quote:
Quote:
Why would anybody fear peanut butter?
Quote:
Teenager with peanut allergy dies after a kiss. A Quebec teenager with a peanut allergy has died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter sandwich hours earlier. Nov. 26 2005 Link
Seriousness of peanut allergies aside, I remember that this story was debunked. It was determined that she didn't die of the peanut allergy. I can't find a reference to it right quick, though.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
Quote:
What does peanut butter have to do with spiders?
arachi, not arachNi..
(I had the some wonder.)
Last edited by etaoin; 08/19/06 12:41 PM.
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
What does peanut butter have to do with spiders?
They share quite a few letters in Greek? The genus name for peanut is arachis (from Greek arakhis (alternate arakis) 'a kind of leguminous plant, chickling', diminutive of arakos 'legume'. Spider in Greek is arakhne. The real question, which I neglected to ask, is why the English word is incorrectly formed. The oblique cases of arakhis are formed from the stem arakhid- (e.g., the genitive is arakhidos), so the term is more pedantically formed as arachidobutyrophobia.
Full disclosure: I am not now, nor have I ever been, allergic to or afraid of peanut butter, but I now know that some people are either one or the other or both.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Quote:
Seriousness of peanut allergies aside, I remember that this story was debunked. It was determined that she didn't die of the peanut allergy. I can't find a reference to it right quick, though.
I thought peanut allergies could be fatal. I had an old flatmate who had one. He refused to be in the same room as peanuts and wore his medication in a tiny capsule around his neck at all times. He told us he'd been rushed to hospital once after eating something with peanuts in it and that it was a life or death situation.
If that's correct, a peanut butter kiss of death is not impossible, is it?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I don't know if it's possible. All I know is that I remember seeing that it was not the case in that particular instance.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
Peanut allergies can certainly be fatal, and some people's reactions can be set off by minimal exposure. It happens, however, that the woman who was thought to have died of a reaction following a kiss actually died of asthma. It was an asthma attack.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
Fo'c's'le is the most preposterous word, at least if you allow contractions to participate.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
Quote:
Fo'c's'le is the most preposterous word, at least if you allow contractions to participate.
Well, if you've got a thing against apostrophes in words, don't go anywhere Samoan - some of it words are little else but.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Quote:
Fo'c's'le is the most preposterous word, at least if you allow contractions to participate.
How do you say that?!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
This is the kind of word that's probably been discussed in this word forum before, but it's new to me:
apodyopsis noun the act of mentally undressing someone.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456
addict
|
addict
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456 |
Quote:
Quote:
Fo'c's'le is the most preposterous word, at least if you allow contractions to participate.
How do you say that?!
Read somewhere it is similar to as in "Your folks'll visit during holidays."
ÅΓª╥┐↕§
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 270
enthusiast
|
enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 270 |
By definition:
lysistrataphobia - The fear that women will subvert men and take over the world
By sound:
humuhumunukunukuapuaa - a small Hawaiian fish
fysigunkus - a person who lacks curiosity
crambazzle - a worn out old man
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Re: lysistrataphobia
What point is there in fearing the inevitable?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
and yet most people probably fear death
Bingley
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
I'm be anti-lysistrataphobic.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Quote:
and yet most people probably fear death
And if you have panphobia you fear, literally, everything.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456
addict
|
addict
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 456 |
That sounds more like 'fear of frying'.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631
addict
|
OP
addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
>fear of frying
He he!
Or fear of others frying! My wife's cooking often inspires that. Although, since such a fear is entirely rational, I don't know that it qualifies as a phobia.
Anyway, not sure it's a very common word. It has a Google-number of only 169.
This is the best I can find:
panphobia
<psychology> Fear of everything.
Origin: pan-+ G. Phobos, fear
(05 Mar 2000)
Source: On-Line Medical Dictionary
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,912
Posts229,283
Members9,179
|
Most Online3,341 Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
0 members (),
674
guests, and
4
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|