My good Goodgold,
Who’s Gertrude?
And why hold me to account for something someone else said? If you don’t like Mr. Miller’s definition of a word, go tell him, but I think you may find him a more formidable target than me. However, for some of us common folk, his definition is nothing short of sublime, and that’s a philosophic-psycho-neurologic predicate too, Mr. Big-word.
I am accused by some on AWAD, of gratuitously flaunting my prodigious vocabulary. To that accusation I plead guilty as charged. I’m sorry, but I just can’t resist offering up those zingers. How else, besides using them, can one expect to consign these wondrous locutions to memory? After all, one doesn’t come by a prodigious vocabulary by osmosis.
Some people collect coins or stamps or traffic citations. Me, I collect words. They’re free, don’t take up space, and are easy to haul around. They don’t depreciate in value or molder with age. Each one has a history behind it, and is a tile in the mosaic of our language, the coin of the accumulated knowledge of humanity.
Please see my bio. You too, Anna. Therein I profess openly to being a lexiphanicist (see definition below), so thank you for alerting the world and further disseminating my nepharious notoriety. Nobody is twisting your arm to read my pedigogical profferings. You are quite welcome to simply skip over my postings whenever they become too burdensome for you. It does seem to me, however, that there are a few of us linguaphiles out there, who’s blood quickens when confronted with an unfamiliar word. After all, the name of this site is wordsmith.org, isn’t it?
I have lexiphilia so bad, I carry a copy of MW10 in my car. I have a long commute and one never knows when Jerry McChesny or Linda Wirtheimer is going to spring another corker. (Yes, I thrive on NPR.) User Tsuwm has a whole web page devoted to verbal esoterica (see his bio) and a mailing list of eager subscribers, fitfully awaiting each day’s “worthless word”. So why do some of you feel impelled to curtail other people’s fun? If you don’t like looking up them hard words, whatcha doin’ here fer, anyhoo? Why doncha hang out in one o’ them thar chat rooms ya keep pinin’ fer, where the mean IQ is minus 20?
Anna, I posted that editing hint a second time under “announcements”, because I felt that was a more appropriate place for it. Had I known you would whinge over my posting it twice, I would have removed the original. Reconsidering however, I can’t imagine anyone else being vexed by my oversight, so what’s the harm? However, out of deference to your ladyship, I do promise not to double my postings in future. I'll double my fun, instead. And just for you, I’ve tried to keep the tone of this posting a bit more informal. Just don’t let me hear you accuse me of being unreasonable. Call me a palavering pedant, with a pertinacious penchant for polysylabic polysemic pronouncements, but don't call me late fer dinner. :-)
Okay, who’s next?
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Footnote:
Lexiphanicism \Lex`i*phan"i*cism\ (-[i^]*s[i^]z'm), n. The use of pretentious words, language, or style.
‘lexiphanicism’, for those who may not know it, is not likely to be found in your typical desk-top Webster’s. The only dictionary I could find on the WEB that lists the term is Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), found at http://work.ucsd.edu:5141/cgi-bin/http_webster. Dispite its age, this reference is especially helpful with these delectable old recondite greco-latinate words. Keep that URL handy. You’re likely to need it with me around. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Gawd, I love this stuff. Mike, I love your self-description. You will get a post or a personal from me tomorrow, or Monday. I have this software engineering job to hold down, and they keep interrupting my verbiphagous gluttony with demands for more work.
