Words, glorious words
Through Green Fairy, Iâve just discovered Wordsmithâs wonderful Word-a-Day site. She mentioned a couple of brilliant words that I hadnât heard of before. Iâm now going to have to find excuses to slip them into casual conversation:
Strikhedonia - The pleasure of being able to say âto hell with itâ
Sphallolalia - Flirtatious talk that leads nowhere
Sphallolaliaâit even sounds seductive.
I love words, and one of my favourite books is a dictionary of words for which no words exist: the excellent Deeper Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. All of Douglas Adamsâ books make me roar out loud with laughter, but this one is useful and funny. For example, havenât you always wanted a word for âan agonizing situation in which there is only one possible decision but you still canât take itâ (Abalemma, n.)? Itâs one of those books that makes you constantly read bits out to anyone else who happens to be in the room (there ought to be a word for that but there isnât), so I could quote sections ad nauseam, but Iâll try to restrict myself to just a few favourites:
