Word of the Day: ackamarackus

ackamarackus (n)

Nonsense, especially if pretentious; something deceptive; humbug.

"Along and across this extravagant architectural ackamarackus, a zoom-lens streaks and glides in those sleek tangents and arcs appropriate to our era of tailfins and tight-trousered girls, that is, of aerodynamic baroque."
--Raymond Durgnat, Eros in the Cinema

Of course, I would never engage in such balderdash... except when I have to conduct personal business that involves writing to some bureaucratic entity -- then I really turn on the ackamarackus faucet. I usually start my email with with a salutation like "Dear [blank] Officer" (no matter how lowly the recipient) and then compose my request or inquiry using the diction and sentence structure of a honey-toungued aristocrat: "may I inquire", "would it be acceptable", "could I be so bold as to", "naturally you may wonder", "perhaps you would consider", etc. They seem to lap it up.