Rocks for Jocks
 

(Geologists can use highfalutin' words nearly as well as the Classics majors can)

In geology, there's a quasi-religious schism
Between neocatrastophism and uniformitarianism.
And who, but a geologist, can see the intrinsic worth
Of an alluvial deposit of diatomaceous earth?
Only a geologist and Ogden Nash posess no animus
In celebrating that living fossil, the duckbilled platypus.

I saw a nénuphar
from afar.
But, what wasn’t cool,
a libellule
was crossing it in boustrophedon.
Conceding
its right to fly, what I
could not surmise
was why the wise
beast flew just so.
Or yes, I know:
that was its breeding.

Well, here it is, Aaron, (and I'm glad you specified ''bad poems" ;)):

The restaurant was ever so swanky,
or, in other words, really quite posh!
My ''Blind Date" was spotty and lanky,
and referred to the dinner as ''nosh".

Oh, why did I come? I felt manky,
and although I thought "Things can't get worse",
he then made a bib with his hanky,
and I silently uttered a curse.

His clothes and his hair were so skanky,
we weren't destined to have a romance.
When he asked, "Do you like hanky-panky?"
I stormed out, yelling "No f***ing chance!"

(Eek, I actually had a blind date not too dissimilar from this when I was about seventeen. :eek:)

Jayne

Douglas, John, Jayne--you all are great. This thread is just what I needed. I have learned so much.

Douglas, Classics is a noble major.

John, speaking of Classics, you gave us "Boustrophedon".

Jayne, in American, "skanky" primarily applies to female, so I love your attribution of "skank" to a male.

Aaron,
Over here ''skank'' also refers to a female (a promiscuous one), but the adjective "skanky" means dirty and unattractive, which can refer to almost anything -- hence my frequent use of it!

The paintwork on my red, seven-year-old Toyota Auris is beginning to blister in places; I am in the process of looking for a new car as it looks really skanky! (This is actually true, and is not just an ''example'' of using one of my favourite words :))

Jayne

PS. Thanks for starting this thread!

I had high hopes of connubial bliss
till the unfortunate toast where I said this
'honorificabilitudinitas'.
Not me, it was the margaritas.
Then I was toast, I had been silver,
but learned, besides hangovers' pilver,
the quickest way to end your date
is liquid madness concentrate.

[quote=Aaron Poochigian;393339] Douglas, Classics is a noble major. QUOTE]

Agreed; If I had been from a rich family, I'd have gone to an Ivy school and majored in Classics. The reality was, I went to RPI on a scholarship, and majored in Geology. Probably actually learned more there, too.

Hmm. This is anecdotal, but the only Classics professor I know is a friend who went to his local grammar school.

An impossible task. I can't get my top 10 movies straight. But I love "deciduous." And "corn."

Lovely. I have only previously come across boustrophedon in a wonderful Les Murray poem.

Colin Dexter used it in a Morse novel, describing the progress of a verger going up the aisle of a church handing out hymn books.

Ooh. LM used it in a cow poem, I think. CD is just showing off there, isn't he?

Btw, widdershins is one of my favourite words too, which is why I was so pleased recently to discover (and to use) deisil, which is (literally) its opposite.

Robert Frost has a character (Dick) expound on "Boustrophedon" to another farmhand (Pike) in "From Plane to Plane:"

“I wouldn’t hoe both ways for anybody!”


“And right you are. You do the way we do

In reading, don’t you Bill?—at every line end

Pick up your eyes and carry them back idle

Across the page to where we started from.

The other way of reading back and forth,

Known as boustrophedon, was found too awkward.”

David, Robert Francis uses both widdershins and its opposite (repeatedly) in an homage to Auden. It appeared in The New Yorker in 1956: https://books.google.com/books?id=B9...hins&f=fa lse

The Pen as Pecker
 

The Pope of Poetry’s faux candor
Ex cathedra damns all banter.

The Villain of Verse has proved he’s callous,
Vetting verse with vicious malice.

Thank you for that link, Aaron. I read the poem, and enjoyed it. What depth of reading does it require to be able to reference that at will? (A rhetorical question, although you can answer it if you wish.)

And what about cancrizans, which is utterly new to me? I'll cheat. I'll Google it right now.

Cheers

David

The fruits of Googling ... brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cixn7IRsP6g

In our small Paris garden, we have a pond in which we planted what my wife calls a “nénuphar” (although it’s actually a nymphéa). A few years ago, we were greatly surprised to see a number of visiting iridescent libellules hovering over the pond. Where did all those dragonflies come from in Paris? We haven’t seen them since.

Whoa, check out the journey of nenuphar into French through Arabic, through Middle Persian, from a Sanskrit compound:
From Medieval Latin nenuphar, from Arabic نِلُوفَر (nilūfar), نِينُوفَر (nīnūfar), from Middle Persian nylw(k)pl (nīlōpal, “lotus, water-lily”), from Sanskrit नीलोत्पल (nīlotpala), from नील (nīla, “blue”) + उत्पल (utpala, “lotus, water-lily”)

Robert Francis's appended definitions ("deasil: from east to west") mislead a bit, as David notes. Cf. this online Irish dictionary: "Right-handed, left-handed, screw: scriú deisil, tuathail." The OED spells it deasil.
He's closer on widdershins, which it spells withershins and which is not left-handed. This online definition will do: "in a direction contrary to the sun's course, considered as unlucky; counterclockwise."
The OED lacks cancrizans: "A musical line which is the reverse of a previously or simultaneously stated line is said to be its retrograde or cancrizans".

Brian, all I know is that Monet painted nympheas. Nenuphars I see are similar but distinct, like a mouette and a goeland.

Cheers,
John

P.S. Aaron, that is a wild ride. The word apricot has a great history as well, from the Latin praecox via the Arabic before returning to Romance.
Update: here's a brief online summary - "mid 16th century: from Portuguese albricoque or Spanish albaricoque, from Spanish Arabic al ‘the’ + barḳūḳ (from late Greek praikokion, from Latin praecoquum, variant of praecox ‘early ripe’); influenced by Latin apricus ‘ripe’ and by French abricot ."

Talk about serendipity! I clicked, read, scrolled, and whammo: the coolest line I've seen in years (which I've probably read twenty times but have forgotten):

God slays himself with every leaf that flies - E.A. Robinson

I just posted a verse from Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" that contained the word 'apricot'. Is that why you suddenly thunk of apricot? Or, no, that's not it. You're just a sprite and I'm the only being in the universe. No, I AM the universe...:D

My semi-favorite words:

Palimpsest - used it lots
Opulent - used it lots
Galumph - used it a few times
Flotilla - used it lots
Architrave - used it twice
Teraphim - used it once
Flocculent - used it once

My favorite words are ones I made up, "which I shall not utter here".

Stole that from Mithrandir, another cool word.^

Hi Bill,

Mithrandir also says "Speak, friend, and enter."
I have a little poem called "Apricot". My wife is fond of them. But I also noted the word's presence in "You're So Vain."
I like your list of favorite words.

Cheers,
John

Bliss.

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