Christmas Gift Idea

"A dictionary makes a great Christmas gift."
--Unknown (possibly Noah Webster)

Parabolic Avocation (microfiction)

Parabolic Avocation

"You're a soprano warbler," I see, said Edwin. "I mean... I hear."

"This again? That's just farcical perverseness", said Enid. "You know I'm alto."

"Nope, soprano," said Ed. "No needful capitulation from me."

"Pugnacious imbecility," Enid warbled.

"Wiggly grayness," Ed said.

"What?" said Enid.

"Test phrase. Try singing that phrase in your highest register."

"Wigglyyy graaaynesssss," Enid sang. "Oh this is barefaced imbecility," she said.

"No, soprano," Ed insisted. "You can do better than that."

"Now we're wandering into sterotypical happenstance," Enid said. "We've been all through this before."

"You could break a glass with that voice," said Ed, with circumscribed garrulousness.

Enid laughed. "I could try. My Baccarat crystal stemware? Would you drop this if I can't do it? Or fix it if I can?

"Cohesive epoxy, right here," said Ed, opening a drawer.

"Your obsession with always being right is a parabolic avocation," Enid sighed, raising the nearest glass.

It was the one Ed had already sabotaged with a hairline crack.

[not to be continued]

Wandering Word Thoughts: Is Your Dragon "Epouventable"?

Is your dragon "epouventable"(frightful)?

You could ask your "deipnosophist" (excellent dinner-table conversationist) to pass the "attic salt" (incisive wit).

My father had a "go-devil", but it wasn't a ghost (as this phrase sometimes means); it was a tool for splitting wood.

What's your opinion of "ultracrepidarians" (those who offer uninformed opinions)?


Epouventable?

Word of the Day: SYLVESTRAL

Word of the Day: sylvestral [SYL-vess-truhl] (adjective), TWITO, page 144. Pertaining to trees. "Xavier, lost in a thicket, was nevertheless awed by the sylvestral beauty of the canopy overhead."


Photo by me!

Much Ado About Nothing? Archaeologists Discover Mysterious Void Deep Within the Great Pyramid

A monolithic cenotaph of stone hides another enigmatic void. Even a 4,500-year old secret can't stay hidden from the prying sensors of cosmic rays ("muons") that can slice through five million tons of masonry like penetrating thoughts. What sleeps in the stale, absolute dark inside? A desiccated corpse dreaming away the centuries? If so, this isn't at all the afterlife that some pharaoh's wife or courtier expected. No supermen with the bodies of lions, no dog-headed deities pointing to an Elysium along the Nile. Just online fame, curious clickers, salivating for the glint of a golden sarcophagus, avoiding their horror vacui, resisting a vague kenophobia over a void that may, in fact, be a big and very old nothing.

Archaeologists Discover Mysterious Void Deep Within the Great Pyramid of Giza