Dear Diary: I'm feeling SCRIBACIOUS

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...

SCRIBACIOUS [scrib-AY-shuss] (adjective)

Fond of writing

"Heraud is a loquacious scribacious little man, of middle age, of parboiled greasy aspect, whom Leigh Hunt describes as ‘wavering in the most astonishing manner between being Something and Nothing."
--Thomas Carlyle, The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1899)

TWITO, page 133

Are these times FISSIPAROUS or what?

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...

FISSIPAROUS [fih-SIP-er-us] (adjective)

Tending to break apart; divisive.

"This endless multiplication of somatic cells has been going on under the eyes of numerous observers for forty years. What observer has watched for forty years to see whether the fissiparous multiplication of Protozoa does not cease? What observer has watched for one year, or one month or one week?"
--Herbert Spencer, "Professor Weismann's Theories", in Popular Science (1893)

The word "congress" means "coming together". Odd, isn't it, how fissiparous the US Congress tends to be?


TWITO, page 54

Are you a nobody or are you a PANJANDRUM?

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...

PANJANDRUM [pan-JAN-drum] (noun)

A very important person (VIP) -- or someone who thinks he or she is (sometimes capitalized).

"Panjandrum" is sometimes used as a metaphorical synonym for other things, such as an explosive weapon used by the British military in World War II, and even for the Supreme Being. (I prefer to refer to the latter as The Cosmic Muffin.)

TWITO, page 106