You're talking nothing but BLATHERSKITE!

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

BLATHERSKITE [BLAT-er-skite] (noun)

1. A babbling, foolish person
2. Absurd and foolish talk

"Oh, that's nothing but blatherskite!" cried Miranda when Viola suggested that Mr. Crave might only be interested in her fortune."



TWITO, page 22

Would you like GHOTI for dinner?

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

GHOTI (noun)

Alternate spelling of "fish"

"What’s this on the menu?" Jordan asked. "It says 'Ghoti'."

"I think they mean fish," Sheila replied. "The chef is a bit pretentious."

Ghoti can be pronounced like "fish":

gh, pronounced like "f" as in tough;
o, pronounced like "i" as in women; and
ti, pronounced like "sh" as in nation



TWITO, page 60

I heard you! Stop battologizing!

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

Battologize (verb) (TWITO, page 20)

To repeat oneself excessively

"But when we pray, let us not battologize (i.e., use vain repetitions), but theologize."
--Samuel Miller (quoting the early Christian theologian Origen), "Thoughts on Public Prayer" (1849)

It can be annoying when someone keeps repeating himself, but it can be amusing, too. Whenever you hear the word or catchphrase elsewhere, you think of that person. The verbal tic becomes symbolic of him or her, like a sonic monogram or an aural coat of arms. As the Beatles said, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here are some words and phrases I hear from battologizers (who shall be nameless) all the time:

circle back
close the loop
have a conversation about....
pretty much
exactly!
What's interesting is....
Can I ask you a question?
over to you
okay, okay, okay
Here's the thing...
whatcha got?

You're no fun -- you're ANTITHALIAN

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

ANTITHALIAN (adjective) TWITO, page 16

= Opposed to fun

"Mr. Toobad described her as being fully impressed with the truth of his Ahrimanic philosophy, and being altogether as gloomy and antithalian a young lady as Mr. Glowry himself could desire for the future mistress of Nightmare Abbey."
--Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey (1818)

"Ahrimanic" refers to Ahriman, which in Zoroastrianism is the name for a devil or Satan. Would you describe Satan as antithalian? It depends on what kind of fun you’re into, I guess.

Wandering Word Thoughts: Don't slonk!

Try not to salivate while you suaviate (i.e., when you kiss someone).

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You won't be able to maintain your froideur (coolness or reserve) if you eat too much sriracha (a pungent sauce of hot peppers pureed with sugar, salt, garlic, and vinegar, most often used as a condiment).

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Don't slonk (swallow greedily) if you don't want to jirble (spill [a liquid] by shaking or unsteady moving)!

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Try to wrap your head around this: The pope wears a "small gourd" (a zucchetto) on his bean.

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Depending on how the food tastes, degust (tasting carefully) may lead to disgust.

Wandering Word Thoughts: Don't Be "Pusillanimous"

Is your dog a groke? (A groke is someone who stares at you while you're eating.)

You don't have to be sick to feel frobly-mobly (i.e., not quite healthy OR sick).

So you claim you're too rugged to ever get the flu, bro? That might be an example of rodomontade (boasting).

Do you suppose a manfant could ever be elected president? (A manfant is a man who acts like an infant.)

Learn these words, and then you can bloviate (talk egotistically at excessive length) about it.

"Every pusillanimous [i.e., timid] creature that crawls on the earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain!" (Said the Wizard of Oz. They may have brains, but they don't have fancy vocabularies.)

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?

Wandering Word Thoughts: "Oh, you knuckylbonyard!"

"Then my leg fell asleep, so I made ambitious circles with my feet, like a nervous orangutan, to cure my obdormition." (TWITO, page 99) It's a fancy way of saying one of your limbs fell asleep.

Why call someone a knucklehead when you can call him a "knuckylbonyard"? Means the same thing, but you'll get eloquence points.

Here's a conversation starter: Try telling someone they're a "snoutfair" today, and see how that goes. It refers to someone's charming and handsome appearance, with a hint of the devilish.

"floccinaucinihilipilification" (TWITO, page 55) is one of the longest (non-scientific) words in the dictionary. Say it 10 times fast! It means the judgement of something as worthless -- a real nothing -- like, for example, a penny. Almost.

Wandering Word Thoughts: Do We ALL Live in a Yellow Submarine?

Did you hear the appoggiatura in that song? (That's an ornamental note, related melodically to the main note.)

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Are you watching the new Twin Peaks? Lots of gapeseed from Mr. Lynch. (gapeseed = an astonishing sight)

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"Before his morning coffee, Winston was comatose; afterword, he was operose." (TWITO, page 103) To be "operose" is to be industrious.

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A honeypot is not at all sweet! It's a decoy computer server designed to divert hackers.

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You could find Northern Lights in a yellow submarine. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (Northern Lights is a strain of marijuana, and a "yellow submarine" is slang for a joint.)

Wandering Word Thoughts: Thunderation!

Be aware that in Japanese, "aware" means "the bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent beauty".

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Thunderation! Better to be a fopdoodle than a mumblecrust, right? All of those are historical curse words.

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The paperback edition of my book isn't a dusty, moldering (seeming) "incunabulum" (TWITO, page 72) like the ones in this picture. And the Kindle and audiobook editions definitely are not: The Word I'm Thinking Of

(Technically, an "incunabulum" is a book printed before the 16th century.)

Wandering Word Thoughts: Whodunit?

Do you prefer a "whodunit", a "howdunit", or a "howdhecatchem"? Those are all words associated with mystery stories. So is "gumshoe", another word for a detective. I've always wanted to write a detective story about a "gumshoe" whose favorite album is Rubber Soul.

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So the word "artichoke" comes from the Arabic "al-khurshoof"? Gesundheit, I say!

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Spy vs. phylactologist? A "phylactologist" is another word for a spy. (Coined by novelist Kingsley Amis in his 1966 book The Anti-Death League.)

Wandering Word Thoughts: Silly "Wabbit"?

Why toddle when you can "shoggle" or "warple"? Both are old-fashioned words for precarious ambling.

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Is your dossier full of "kompromat"? That's a Russian word for information gathered for the purpose of blackmailing someone. Could be a useful word someday soon.

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Is your rabbit "wabbit"? It means exhausted or sickly.

Wandering Word Thoughts: Firenado!

Here's wishing you a cwtch. Don't you just love those Welsh words that have no vowels? (It means a hug.)

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No, "sharknado" is not an actual weather word. Aren't you glad? But firenado is. That's a vortex that rises from a fire, carrying smoke and flame.



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If you don't want to call it a lie, you can at least describe it as twistical (meaning inclined to twist the truth).

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Let's use more interjections, dagnabbit!

Wandering Word Thoughts

Are you a "pochemuchka" (someone who asks too many questions)? Forget I asked!

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You may think my blog is "floccinaucinihilipilification" (meaning worthless -- TWITO, page 55), but I don't.

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Lord Cardigan led the Charge of the Light Brigade, but now he's known for a cozy sweater.

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"Misodoctakleidist" (TWITO, page 89) means someone who hates practicing the piano. "Like me," I would have said at age 8.

Wandering Word Thoughts

"Gumsuck me goodbye, honey!" Gumsuck is a 19th-century slang term for "kiss". Ewww....

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To thine own ipseity be true. Ipseity is a word for "selfhood" or the ability to be oneself.

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Any other epeolatrists out there? Epeolatry is the worship of words.

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One of my favorite words is fulgent (meaning "shining brightly"). "Unable to sleep, he wandered the hills that night, under the fulgent moon." (TWITO, page 58)



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Are you sesquipedalian? Then you like to use long words.

Wandering Word Thoughts

Are you "sesquipedalian"? If so, you like to use long words.

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Is your bunny a "whorson glassegazing superfinicall rogue"? If so, you're rabbit is vain.

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"Face-palm" about all the "train wrecks" in the news these days. And that Merriam-Webster has now added those words to its dictionary.

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You're probably "chuffed" if you already know a lot of British phrases. Proud, that is.

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Do you believe in "flechazo" at first sight? That's when you've been pricked by Cupid's (Spanish) arrow.

Wandering Word Thoughts

"Otherkin" (adjective) was recently added to Oxford Dictionaries. It denotes people who identify as non-human. Hmm. Are you glad we finally have a word for that?

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There are 18 ways to say "awesome" according to this site:

18 ways

But they forgot "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"!

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A "gobemouche" (TWITO, page 61) is a credulous person. It literally means "someone who swallows flies". (Think about it with your mouth open.)

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So Merriam and Webster can't agree on the pronunciation of "GIF". I'd say it's a hard G, like in....well, Gates.

Wandering Word Thoughts

You just did not want to make Shakespeare angry. He had plenty of poetic ways to insult someone. Call someone a "dizzy-eyed dewberry" today. I dare you!

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"Just because you're pronoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to help you." ("Pronoid" means the opposite of "paranoid".)

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Haven't you always wanted a word for "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery"? It's "litost".

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Forsooth, you may think this list a fandangle, but I find it goodly:

archaic words