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Re: They Have a Word for It!

From:andrew <hobbit@...>
Date:Friday, August 3, 2001, 7:13
Am 08/03 00:50  Yoon Ha Lee yscrifef:

> On that note, I seem to remember some "dictionary" of words that ought > to exist, snatches of which were read to us in 3rd grade. I can't for > the life of me remember the author or title, but one word I remember > vividly was "airdo," or "the little rubber-dust fragments that come from > an eraser when you use it" (or somesuch). This ring a bell with anyone? >
Was it Sniglets, the dictionary of necessary words, or some title close to that? I know Sniglets is right, I remember finding it in a library. Apparently some American sketch show invited people to contribute unorthodox words that they used. The ones I remember are: hempennent: the fringe of a dress caught in a cardoor. perambulambulate: to look through the slot after one has posted the letter. aeropalmics: the act of holding a hand out the window of a moving car so it rests on the air currents. I think there were originally two or three small volumes of these humerous descriptions. I once saw them in a single volume ten years ago in a bookstore, and I didn't buy it, dammit! I have heard of the book "They Have a Word for It!" but never seen it. The now-retired editor of the Batman Comics once recommended it in his letters pages. - andrew. -- Andrew Smith, Intheologus hobbit@griffler.co.nz alias Mungo Foxburr of Loamsdown http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html 'That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? O keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men, Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!' - The Waste Land, T.S. Elliot.

Replies

Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
Muke Tever <alrivera@...>