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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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as some of you know, I have a rather large collection of "obscure, abstruse and recondite" words. in compiling said collection, I have stumbled upon a subset of words that I have been unable to confirm anywhere. here are a few of them -- my undieing gratitude would go out to anyone (jazzo excepted) who can shed any light on any of these:
supradentulous - with a toothy grin?
catastarian - narrator? bearer of bad news??
suritorous - ?
ambigamous - will marry anything??
trobbisopdvan - huge shock caused by eating too many asparagus stalks?!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I found "catastarian" in this article - are you sure Jazz does not have a part time job in financial reporting. I thought this was too Stanley Holloway to be true - please tell me it isn't real! In commenting on the results, Robert W. MacDonald, chairman and CEO of Life USA, said, "We believe the corner has been turned relative to sales and profitability and we are just about ready to toss out the cascarons. The recent rise in long-term interest rates appears to be just the febrifuge needed to trigger an increase in the sale of fixed annuities and confirms that our previous dacrygelosis and comments about a difficult sales environment was not simply a fimblefamble. Rising long-term interest rates are certainly our pantarbe and if they remain at current levels, we anticipate significantly increased sales for the balance of 1999. We are not being mantic, but based on strong marketing momentum and effective control of operating expenses, we expect the Company to produce solid earnings results for the balance of the year. In a way, it is too bad this activity is catastarian in nature. However, we believe that LifeUSA is well positioned to make an important contribution to the overall expansion of Allianz efforts in the American insurance market." http://www.findarticles.com/m0EIN/1999_July_14/55153413/p1/article.jhtml
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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yeah, some time ago I had found an earlier reference to this quote, which explained that Mr. MacDonald made a practice of lading his annual reports with this sort of perissology. unfortunately, he has since retired (or has been retired) along with his web site; and, also unfortunately, I have found catastarian nowhere else. somewhere I got the notion that it shares some history with catastrophic (hi anna!).
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addict
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addict
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< fimblefamble>
a word that should be in every annual report!
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old hand
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old hand
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not counting myself among catastrophiles, I suggest an alternative root for catastarian: In German there is Kataster for English cadaster, and under the latter word I found:
ca·das·tre also ca·das·ter (k-dstr). n.
A public record, survey, or map of the value, extent, and ownership of land as a basis of taxation.
[French from Provençal cadastro, from Italian catastro, alteration of Old Italian catastico, from Late Greek katastikhon, register: Greek kata-, by; see cata- + Greek stikhos, line; see steigh- in Indo-European Roots.]
So it would not take much coaxing to imagine catastarian as "being in charge of (or based on) a cadaster".
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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...and how would you work that into Mr. MacDonald's annual report?
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old hand
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old hand
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.. by slightly extending the meaning of cadaster to include registers or surveys of a population's mortality statistics, to be used for calculating life insurance.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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mortality statistics
...which is surely not too big a leap, given such financial terms as 'mortgage'
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Here's a good clue, tsuwm! This is from a list of cliches that have been disguised. 11. All articles that coruscate with resplendance are not truly suritorous. ----------------------------------------------------------- To me, that means All that glitters is not gold, so... Here's the site: http://www.smu.edu/~mbonilla/stories/quotes/clichesweveheard.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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