15 Feb 2006
Word of the day
I love discovering obscure words that are new to me. The following word arrived via an article about Proust that a reader of this blog sent me:
abecedarian: (adjective) 1 arranged alphabetically : in abecedarian sequence. 2 rudimentary; elementary : abecedarian technology. noun a person who is just learning; a novice. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from late Latin abecedarius 'alphabetical' (from the names of the letters a, b, c, d).
It's a great replacement for 'newbie', though somewhat harder to spell.
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I (finally) learned the meaning of "selachian" yesterday. Only because I wrote a post about an event which happened to me nearly twenty seven years ago, involving a boat called that. So now I know why it was thus named.3
For calligraphers, an abecedarian sentence is one that contains all the letters of the alphabet, like "Mad brother Jarvis was quickly axed for crazy praying." These are good to write out for warmups. This h2g2 entry has more details.4
I am a frequent practitioner of omphaloskepsis; a long and impressive sounding word but not something you should necessarily boast about (as I haven't yet acheived a higher state of mind- quite the oppostite actually).5
Abecedarian - not so hard to spell I think. I like it very much. One I came across recently (you probably know this - you being a clever scientist and all
) - ablated. I liked that. Got a chance to use one of my favourites recently: Fatidical. Used to be in the OED but nowhere else. I think I came across it first in The Rosy Crucifxion (Henry Miller).
Another one; an old word; avyseth, from The Miller's Prologue (lots of Millers here).
I like the sound of a lot of those old words. I like to slip them into conversation sometimes - so people can be sure I'm nuts.
Gushingly yours
by Chris Light @ 18/02/2006 4:03 am • Permalink
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Thinking about it, my hard drive is the modern palimpsest........ Go on, look it up.by Jonathan Briggs @ 18/02/2006 9:03 pm • Permalink
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I don't care how many words you know so long as you are callipygous. -----by ThoughtBadger @ 20/02/2006 1:03 am • Permalink
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A great word to use to make people feel dumb for being dumb =P----- Posts like this make me realise how much I appreciate my Shorter OED CD. I can find out how words are supposed to be pronounced without needed to figure out the phonetic alphabet. a-b-c-darian is a good enough approximation for anyone wondering. But why, oh why does the Oxford English Dictionary give the pronunciation in an American accent?by Andy Cunningham @ 15/02/2006 9:03 pm • Permalink