27 January 2007

Totally Weird and Wonderful Words

Do you know what illecebrous, langsuir, and telematology mean? No - I thought not. They are 'attractive', 'female vampire', and 'the study of peat bogs' respectively. Not a lot of people know that. You might say that not many people would want to know that. But if you are one of the exceptions - people who are fascinated by etymology, unusual words, and obscure terms - this is the book for you. It's a collection of really out-of-the-way lexical items and words you have probably never heard of before. Entries run from abligurition (spending a lot on food) and abnormous (18th century, 'mis-shapen') to zoonosis (disease transmitted from animals to humans) and Zyrian (a north Russian language) ... Read more >>


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