Friday, 21 June 2013

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)

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