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#111129 08/29/03 12:26 AM
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I found the word "bibliobibuli" under the entry "read too much, people who" in The Writers Digest Flip Dictionary, but I couldn't find this word in any other dictionary I tried. I couldn't find a root for "bibuli" either. Anyone know anything about it?


#111130 08/29/03 12:35 AM
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although found in tsuwm's wwftd(!) http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/abc.htm#B, here's from WordSpy:

bibliobibuli
noun. People who read too much and so are generally oblivious to world around them.

Example Citation:


"There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing."
—H. L. Mencken, Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks


Backgrounder:
This word shows up often in collections of interesting and unusual words (though rarely in conversation!). It's a combination of "biblio-" (Greek: comb. form of book) and a variant of "biblulous" (Latin: "Freely or readily drinking").
Subject Categories:
Culture - Books and Magazines
Language - Insults

Posted on April 12, 1997


http://www.wordspy.com/words/bibliobibuli.asp

welcome to the board, biblio!



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#111131 08/29/03 12:43 AM
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Hi Biblio
I prefer to think of myself as a bibliophile or perhaps a bibliomet (biblio + gourmet). I can quit anytime I want to.

i just don't want to, so there


#111132 08/29/03 02:52 AM
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actually, this is a nonce word, coined by Mencken especially for the occasion; as per WordSpy, it's not encountered much outside of word collections.


#111133 08/29/03 05:29 AM
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word collections

I like collecting bibelots. They take up much less space than tchotchkes.


#111134 08/29/03 07:26 AM
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tchotchkes

Sounds like a Yiddish word? New to me, what does it mean please?


#111135 08/29/03 08:58 AM
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tchotchkes

Yep, it's Yiddish, dixbie. on your next trip, skip Texas and come to NY

BBC did a wonderful 8-part (I think) series in the late 70s or early 80s called "The Story of English." I borrowed the tapes from the library last year. I was cool with the Yiddish influence; got seriously befuddled in an earlier episode with speakers of two totally separate dialects in the north of English engaging in a bit of horse-trading. They managed.


#111136 08/29/03 09:39 AM
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two totally separate dialects in the north of English engaging in a bit of horse-trading

The lovely AnnaS misremembers slightly. It was two separate languages: English and Danish, as spoke over a thousand years ago. They discovered that they had many roots in common but the declensional endings were miles apart. They decided to drop the declensional endings and instead to use word order to indicate case. Quantum leap in the development of the language we know and love and argue interminably about.


#111137 08/29/03 10:24 AM
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tchotchkes

Yep, it's Yiddish, dixbie


OK. Thanks. But what does it *mean?


#111138 08/29/03 11:44 AM
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But what does it *mean?

Oh, I thought that was clear from the context . It means knick-knacks. Do you have that word in your version of our beloved language?


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