Ten Things You Might Not Know About Obscure Words-- Part 4

8.  If your uncle spent a lot of time on the BRIDEWELL he was likely the black sheep of the family.  This is a generic term for jail that comes from the 16th-century prison near St. Bride Church in London.  The City of Chicago called its house of detention a bridewell for more than a century beginning as early as the 1850s.    Well, I never heard of it.

9.  When a leader assigns competent underlings to a minor task to get them out of the way, the leader has STELLENBOSCHED them.  The word comes from the Second Boer War , when the British sent unproven officers to the South African town of Stellenbosch to mind the horses and handle any other chore as long as they were away from the front lines.  My wife likes to Stellenbosch me.

10.  And finally, the word LABEORPHILLST.

So, Now That Mark and Stephan Have So Improved Our Vocab.  Bring On Those GREs.  --Cooter

In case you're wondering, a LABEOPHILLST collects beer bottle labels.  I've tried, but they keep pulling apart.

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Obscure Words-- Part 3

5.  The universal language VOLAPUK was anything but obscure in the 1800s.  It was invented by a Roman Catholic German priest who said he was told by God to create a language that was easy to master to bring people together.  The Chicago Tribune mentioned it many times, especially the 1890s.  No Tower of Babel for us.

6.  SFUMATO is a printing technique in which one tone blends into another, without sharp outlines.  Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is an example.  I wonder what term refers to lack of eyebrows.

7.  A QUINCUNX is the arrangement of five (I got that) things in which four of them form a square and the fifth is in the center.  The number five on throwing dice is called a quincunx.  Did you know what number you always come up with when you add the numbers on opposite sides of the die?

Stuff You Really Didn't Need to Know.  --DaCoot

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Obscure Words-- Part 2

2.  Here's one that I can really relate to: AFTERISM:  You won't find it in many dictionaries, but the word means a clever retort that you come up with too late.  The French refer to it as "staircase wit (l'espirit de l'escaller).  (Is this where we get escalator from?)    And, I have had some REAL Good Retorts, too.  Hey, Up the Down Staircase.

3.  Auto-Carriage-Speak.  The BROUGHAM was a horse-drawn carriage-- and early automobile model with an enclosed passenger compartment and exposed driver's seat.    The PHAETON, named after the out-of-control chariot driven by the son of the Greek sun god, was a carriage or auto with or without a cloth canopy.  Not to be confused with the CABRIOLET or the DROPHEAD COUPE, two early names for the convertible.

4.  You may have wondered about the that little grooved place between your nose and upper lip.  That's your PHILTRUM.  Adolf Hitler had a philtrum mustache that also can be called a toothpaste mustache.  So did Charlie Chaplin.

I Always Called Them Ragtops.  --Cooter

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Obscure Words-- Part 1

From the Feb. 23, 2014, Chicago Tribune by those noted researchers Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer.

This crazy winter has brought us some never-heard-before weather-speak words such as BOMBOGENESIS and WILLIWAW (not to mention that cursed P.V. thing.  In case you're wondering, the first is meteorologist slang for a type of rapidly intensifying storm and the second is a windstorm caused when cold air rushes down a mountain to the sea.  "Here's more about obscure language that we hope you'll be goshbustified (very pleased) to learn.  By the way, P.V. is that gosh-awful polar vortex thing.

I hate to say it, but I think some of these words were on my GREs.  I am sure they were making words up.

1.  A DOZENALIST is a person who advocates that people adopt a base-12 counting system, saying it will be easier.  And, besides that, our clocks are set to dozens already.  I thing I had some of that base stuff back in junior and senior high.  Didn't know them then, still don't.

Bombogenesis That Dozenalist.  --Cooter