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What is the most preposterous word you've ever come across?
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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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; 08/18/2006 4:11 PM.
dalehileman
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?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; 08/17/2006 7:13 PM.
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Pooh-Bah
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sesquipedalian
I love that it serves as it's own example.
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Quote:
sesquipedalian
I love that it serves as it's own example.
Reminds me of Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.
A fear of long words.
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Quote:
Arachibutyrophobia
Ha ha! I had to google that! It's right off the prepostrometer!
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'Twas one of the many things I've learned from tsuwm.
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Pooh-Bah
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Thread edited to change it to valetudinarian
dalehileman
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Nonplussed. Its derivation is somewhat logical but appearance is lunatic.
ÅΓª╥┐↕§
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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
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Arachibutyrophobia.
Why would anybody fear peanut butter?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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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
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What does peanut butter have to do with spiders?
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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.
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Quote:
What does peanut butter have to do with spiders?
arachi, not arachNi..
(I had the some wonder.)
Last edited by etaoin; 08/19/2006 12:41 PM.
formerly known as etaoin...
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Pooh-Bah
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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.
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Pooh-Bah
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Fo'c's'le is the most preposterous word, at least if you allow contractions to participate.
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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Quote:
Fo'c's'le is the most preposterous word, at least if you allow contractions to participate.
How do you say that?!
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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.
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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╥┐↕§
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enthusiast
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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
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Re: lysistrataphobia
What point is there in fearing the inevitable?
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and yet most people probably fear death
Bingley
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Pooh-Bah
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I'm be anti-lysistrataphobic.
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Quote:
and yet most people probably fear death
And if you have panphobia you fear, literally, everything.
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That sounds more like 'fear of frying'.
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>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
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