Weird and Wonderful Words (2 of 2 free samples)

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Weird and Wonderful Words by Erin McKean. Copyright 2003 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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THE A TO Z OF WEIRD AND WONDERFUL WORDS, A

aboulia — the loss of will or volition, as a mental illness. It’s related to a Greek word meaning ‘thoughtlessness.’

agliff — a verb only found in the past participle as aglifft, meaning ‘frightened.’ It is related to the equally obsolete gliff, meaning ‘to alarm.’

agnate — a relation by descent from a common male ancestor, especially on the father’s side.

agonistarch — a person who trained combatants for games. A much more intimidating word than our modern coach.

alexiteric — an adjective meaning ‘able to ward off contagion’ or ‘having the properties of an antidote.’ Both rubber gloves and ipecac could be called alexiteric. This word comes from a Greek word meaning ‘protection.’

alogotrophy — excessive nutrition to any one part of the body, resulting in deformity. Like many unnerving and disturbing medical words, this one seems to be more a theory of disease than an actual condition. It comes from Greek roots meaning ‘unreasonable nourishment.’

angletwitch — (also angletouch) an obsolete but charming word meaning ‘a worm used as bait in fishing.’

antapology — a reply to an apology. Very rare, this word deserves a wider use to describe responses to apologies such as “Well, you should be sorry!”

ABERRANT AND AMAZING ANATOMY

Anyone who has ever contemplated the essential humor of the belly button (omphalodium) or the big toe (hallux) would not be surprised at the number of unusual words available to describe our odd extremities and parts.

There are quite a few terms right at your fingertips. The very fingertip, the part with the fingernail, is the metacondylus. The fingertip, not including the nail, is the dactylion. The nail itself is an unguicule. Your annularis, or ring-finger, not only has a direct line to your heart, but supposedly also cures disease (thus the name leech-finger if you’re a doctor). If you’re all thumbs, perhaps you have one pollex too many? If you have lost a thumb, you’re murcous. If you have one finger or toe too many (especially one on the far side of your little toe or little finger) it’s a postminimus. Your little finger is also called your ear-finger or auricular, being the most convenient, one assumes, for investigations into the souse, ‘ear.’ The hollow of the external ear is called the alveary, because the wax is found there. Alveary comes from a Latin word meaning ‘beehive.
’ The little flap on the inner side of the external ear is the tragus; it is opposite the helix, which is the rim of the external ear. The palm of the hand and the sole of the foot have the same name—thenar, which is also the name for the ball of muscle at the base of the thumb.

Your bendy parts also have good names. You may not know your ear from your ancon if you’re unaware that your ancon is your elbow. The bend of the elbow itself is the bought. Your oxter is your armpit. Knapper for knee is a little easier to grasp, but most people don’t know that the space behind the knee is called the hough. The kneecap has a slew of names, including knop, rotula, rowel, shive, whirl-bone, and pattle-bone. Something that bends like a knee is geniculate. Going from the top down on the leg, you can refer to your coxa or huckle (hip), meros (thigh), hockshin or gambrel (the underside of your thigh), sparlire (calf), astragalus or coot (ankle-bone), down to the pterna (heel-bone).

If you’re sitting down while you read this, you are using your crupper, fud, bewscher, hurdies, crus, rass, and toute to its full potential, not to mention your crena, ‘the crease between the buttocks.’ (If you suffer from excess hair on your fundament, you are dasypygal.)

There are all sorts of little odds and ends around the body that have good names, like the columella, the little flap that hangs down in the back of your throat (often called the uvula), and the cavity in which it hangs, the fauces. The blank spaces of your face, like the glabella (the space between your eyebrows) and the philtrum or pallium (the dent of your upper lip) should be, in most cases, glabrous ‘smooth.’ It sounds more determined to grit your mompyns instead of your teeth, or to stick out your pogonion ‘most projecting part of a chin.’ Quite possibly the nicest term of all, though, is heart-spoon, the little dent at the end of your sternum. Or it would be, if the citations for it didn’t involve it being used to whet an attacker’s knife.

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