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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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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Are there other uvulae in the body besides the roaming one?
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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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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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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