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New word!

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As a philomath I'm enjoying this thread. I loved learning new words as a young reader, and the pleasure continues. A contemporary author who regularly uses obscure words is Will Self, who can be wilfully mischievous when interviewed, sprinkling his answers with words that people won't have heard of.

He makes some good points about the falling standards of language in this article :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17777556
 
Ectype: a copy from an original : an imitation or reproduction (such as an impression of a seal) a : something in the world of external reality as distinguished from its eternal and ideal archetype or prototype.
 
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Sciamachy

Fighting imaginary enemies, fighting your own shadow. Mock combat for practice. Paranoid episode, imagining that you are under attack

cutcaster-photo-100872054-fight-against-the-own-shadow.jpg
 
brephophagist n 1731 -1875
one who eats babies... um... aye-naw me no likey. Thought this must have happened often enough for there to be an actual word for it. In fact I saw an article about 4 months ago about people eating babies in China :/
 
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brephophagist n 1731 -1875
one who eats babies... um... aye-naw me no likey. Thought this must have happened often enough for there to be an actual word for it. In fact I saw an article about 4 months ago about people eating babies in China :/

Would that be for one who eats their own babies or one who eats the babies of others? While a human that eats their own child would be horrific, people eat animal and plant babies all the time.
 
I found it associated with Fat Basted from Austin Powers so just babies in general I think lol yukky
 
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Fnord. Be uneasy and confused, you unilluminated. From Wikipedia:

The word was coined as a nonsensical term with religious undertones in the Discordian religious text Principia Discordia (1965) by Kerry Thornley and Greg Hill, but was popularized by The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) of satirical conspiracy fiction novels by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.[3] Illuminatus! was produced, in the United Kingdom, as a cycle of plays by anarchic theatre director Ken Campbell and his Jungian Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool. The plays popularized the term. In these novels, the interjection "fnord" is given hypnotic power over the unenlightened. Under the Illuminati program, children in grade school are taught to be unable to consciously see the word "fnord". For the rest of their lives, every appearance of the word subconsciously generates a feeling of uneasiness and confusion, and prevents rational consideration of the subject. This results in a perpetual low-grade state of fear in the populace. The government acts on the premise that a fearful populace keeps them in power
 
Horripilate, horripilation: the bristling of the body hair, e.g. due to cold, fear, etc.
 
Ekphrastic, ekphrasis: a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art ... fine word for a mundane or at least commonplace activity...
 
@defenestration. My mother got fenestrated once. She was doing a degree in German and spent a year in Munich in 1959. Germany was still 'post-war,' and her landlady told her she must go to register as an 'alien' at the local police station.
She asked a passing policeman where to get in. There was a long road and a long wall with windows as far as she could see, and no sign anywhere of the entrance. He smiled, reached up and rapped on a window. The window opened. He spoke to someone inside. Then he got hold of my mother by the waist, hoisted her aloft feet first and posted her in through the window, into the waiting arms of a policeman inside. Who wagged his finger, said she was a naughty fraulein not to have registered sooner then got her registered as an alien.

She was wearing a dress and coat. A day for wearing 'thunder knickers' if ever there was one.

I've heard of defenestrated, Katie Ellen, but your mother is the first person I've heard of being fenestrated.
 
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