Eaten? No, Rubbed all over myself? Yes.

Words.  Words are great right, if you didn't know any words... Well, you be stuffed wouldn't you? Recent studies have shown that there are somewhere in the region of a quarter of a million words in the English language - That's one for every mile between the Earth and the Moon, or one word for every pound of the price of an average UK house (Or Bugatti Veyron).

However, the average person's vocabulary can be anything between 20,000 - 50,000 words.  That means, for every word you know, there are at least another four that you probably don't.  OK, I mean a lot of them will be technical words or stuff you're never going to need, or dialect words.  But even so, that means that there's a potload of great words that we're not using, I say we... Obviously I mean you guys - I'm all about the using three long words where one short one will do.

I was reading some Blogs this morning, on the toilet (don't judge me, you all do it too, probably) and I saw that it's not just me.  A lot of Bloggers use 'flowery' language with the assumption that people will know what they mean. (Or to make themselves look intelligent) - That's not why I do it of course.  I genuinely love words... (Although the first time I wrote that, it came out as 'I genuinely love worms' Which isn't the same thing at all)

So, I present below a few of my favourite words (Not worms) as may or may not have been on the Blog, and their rough meanings - Please try to shoe-horn as many as you can into random conversations over the weekend.

-oOo-

Agglomeration - A stuck-together jumble, or pile of cr*p

Anapestic Tetrameter - A style of writing where you stress every third syllable when you read it out (Like T'was the NIGHT be-fore CHRISTMAS)

Anthropomorphic - giving something that isn't human, human attributes, like imagining death as a guy with a hood, and a scythe and a horse, called Binky.

Benzoylmethylecgonine - The posh word for Cocaine

Brobdingnagian - Huge, gigantic, large to the point of uselessness, From Jonathan Swift's book, Gulliver's Travels.

Burgeoning - To grow, but quickly. Like the buds on a flower, or perhaps the belly of an under-aged mother to be.

Calderkin - A dialect word for flint (the type of rock)

Chimping - The act of pooping into your hand and throwing it at the object of your affection. (Yeah, seriously - It's a thing that people actually do.)

Debauchery - Giving it large with the wine and the women, things you wouldn't tell your Mum.

Decrepit - (Not decrepiD, as most people seem to say) Old and feeble.

Gorram - A shortened version of God-Damn, originally from the Joss Whedon program 'Firefly' - Which you should all go and watch now, it teaches you how to swear in Chinese.

Hvad? - Danish for 'What?' - I've been using this for years and it sounds just enough like the English equivalent for people not to notice... Make me chuckle internally every time though.

Invective - Sweary and unpleasant words.

Ipovlopsychophobia - A fear of having your photograph taken, Like, that whole 'You can't take my picture! - Why, do you think it will steal your soul? - No, you've left the lenscap on' thing.

Laconic - brief, able to be described in just a few words.

Leitmotif - A (very) short piece of music, associated with a particular character - Possibly just a few notes that gets played when, for instance, the villain enters.

Panoply - A lot of different things, displayed at the same time. (From a Greek word that means a full set of weapons and armour)

Pitchblende - The ore that we get Uranium from

Poltroon - Not an idiot, as some people might think, but specifically a coward.

Proclivities - things that you enjoy doing, usually things that other people might find odd, disgusting, or potentially illegal.

Quantum - Now this sounds like one of those frightfully scary scientific words, you hear it a lot in Star Trek and stuff like that.  But it just means an amount of something, usually a small amount, but it doesn't have to be. (And you thought the title of the James Bond film Quantum of Solace was just gibberish? Well now you know)

Smorgasbord - (not SmorgasborG) Put simply, a buffet... But can be used to mean the same as a panoply.  It actually means a table full of sandwiches.

Sociopath - Someone who not only doesn't have a conscience, but doesn't even know that such a thing exists.

-oOo-

So, hopefully you learned a few new words, or learned what some words you've been using wrongly in the past actually mean.

Have a fun weekend, I'm going to - You see, I might be misguided, but at least I'm determined.

Peace...

Out...

(Kisses my middle and index fingers and waves them at you)

It was like the Somme, only with more protein

Another short one for you today.

Partly because I've noticed that the average length of my Blogs is increasing, but mostly because it took me over two hours to get to work today, and I'm probably going to end up being pulled off to do something at some stage - Or at least looking like I am.

Not looking like I'm being pulled off - Not in the office... Good gracious no! How could you possibly think such a thing?

-oOo-

Anyway, I think it might be time for another part of the DogBlog.   You'll remember last time, gentle readers that we were discussing the antics of Saffron, the vegetarian Rottweiler that could attain Warp speed with no external assistance.

A lot of the stories about her feature food, often other peoples' food... Well I say other peoples', I mean it starts off as other peoples' and ends up being hers.

Four dogfood based stories for you today.  Hope you like them.

-oOo-

As has been mentioned before, I used to live quite close to the countryside, which made dog walking very pleasurable   We'd often wander up onto the farmlands, get really muddy and toddle home for a refreshing hose-down in the garden, before wrapping ourselves up in front of the fire, in a tartan car-blanket and drink cocoa until we dropped into a coma.

On this particular Sunday, we had got halfway through the toddling home part of the plan when Saff decided to try an experiment.  She reasoned that if she stopped dead, the check-chain around her neck would loosen and all she would need to do would be to step backwards, and she would be free.  She performed this maneuver successfully and had it away on her paws.  Not into the road, not off down the street like a hairy Starship Enterprise, but through the open front door of one of the houses on our Avenue.

I said something like 'Oh poop! Stop you silly dog, I shall revoke your carrot privileges if you don't stop immediately!'

Then I followed her into the house.

Have you ever walked in, unannounced, on a family, having their high-tea on a Sunday evening? A family that seem to have invited some friends round? A family that had a large selection of sandwiches and salad and other pastries on a coffee table in a kind of smorgasbord for everyone to share? A family whose very fancy repast was being noisily decimated by a muddy rottweiler?

No?

I have... It's suprisingly peaceful - In fact, the only sound, other than that of a dog's jaws snapping open and closed repeatedly was me saying 'I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... Really, I'm really sorry...'

And a small child sobbing in the corner.

-oOo-

Another occasion, myself and a friend of mine (Strangely, this friend is now married to the young lady who dreams of me kicking footballs at her head) were sitting in my back garden on a glorious summers day, enjoying a casual beer or two and some nibbles.  We were sitting on folding garden chairs, you know, those aluminium deckchair things?

Anyway, we were being watched by the dog.  I use the word 'watched' here to describe a huge lump of dog, sat directly in front of the chairs, huge, fat, head some 18" from our plates, slobbering like an incontinent version of Niagara Falls.

My colleague reached down to get his beer and unthinkingly waved his plate an inch too close to her mouth.  The next few things happened almost simultaneously, I will describe them in slow-motion for clarity.

Saff launched herself at the food on the plate, within a femtosecond this was noticed and the plate pulled away and towards Dave's (for that was the gentleman's name) chest.  Unfortunately the food seeking centre of the dogs brain had fully engaged by this stage, and she changed her trajectory mid leap.  Her front paws both landed in Dave's midsection both winding him and pushing him backwards slightly.  As all his weight was now on the back leg of the chair, it folded up - trapping him with his knees up by his shoulder-blades and on the ground. His luncheon hit him in the face, closely followed by a sopping wet rottweiler mouth.

As ever in these situations, as a responsible dog-owner I laughed heartily until I actually wet myself and was unable to breathe.

-oOo-

This photograph, from Facebook, shows the dog we are talking about asking for some ice-cream.

Ahhh! I hear you say.  You know why you say that?  It's because you are not a petrified paperboy.

One day, much like any other day. I was preparing to go out - I can't remember whether I was intending to take the dog with me, but let's say, for the sake of argument that I was.  We were stood in the hallway (The same hallway where we locked her the time she drugged herself) and I opened the front door.

Captain Picard gave the 'Engage' command and she covered the hundred yards between the door and her chosen target in the blink of an eye, without her feet actually touching the ground.  Her target on this occasion was the paperboy, on a BMX bike, with an ice-cream (They should totally include that as one of the options in Cluedo).  Give the kid his due, despite biting his lip and shaking gently, he gave no outward signs of fear and just held his cornet up as high as he could, out of her way.

Which was great, until she, very slowly, reared up on her hind legs, stretched her neck, and bit the top off the ice-cream cone level with his fingers.  I think that it was at that point that he started crying - I did give him a pound to buy a new one though.

-oOo-

And finally, I thought we were all due a 'Greedy Dog gets her come-uppance' style story.

My pigeon-exploding Father, unwitting star of my most popular Blog post ever, had, and in fact still has, a thing about chocolate covered Brazil nuts.  Every Christmas and Birthday, that's the go-to present if we can't think of anything else.  Now, if you don't want to buy the poundshop ones that are covered in the same chocolate they make dog-treats out of, they can be quite expensive.  One Christmas, it was decided that we should try and make our own, so we bought a number of Brazil nuts, along with some very posh chocolate, and made some of our own.  Some... Some... That just filled a Christmas Quality Street tin.

We went out to do some last minute Christmas shopping and came back to find the empty tin on the floor, along with the dog, who was quietly moaning to herself.  The first thought that went through our heads was the old 'But chocolate is poisonous to dogs' thing... No, that's a lie, the first thought was to beat the dog to death with a broom a-la Tom and Jerry.  But we realised that there wasn't a lot we could do and we'd just have to wait and see what happened.

It didn't take long.

She was up and about in an hour or so, and dragged herself into the garden.  The mixture of nut-based roughage and upset stomach combined in a scene from the worst war/horror film ever.

Firstly, the nuts had been completely unchanged by the trip through her digestive system and were coming out whole, at speed, along with some very unpleasant plumbing type 'spattery' noises from one end, and strangled howling from the other.

Secondly, she seemed to think that the pain she was suffering was something to do with her location, so she kept walking around the garden whilst nature was taking its course.  I must admit to laughing when she got too close to the fence and they started richochetting off it.

She never ate chocolate again, in fact she'd actively shy away from it, even dog chocolate.  The next day when I went out in full NBC gear to clear it all up, it'd all disappeared... I'm guessing squirrels - Who knew that they didn't have a sense of smell?