Word Nerds!

[VertOlive]

Ok. This is a thing with me. I love new words, weird words, obscure words. If anyone else would like to pitch in, please do!

This one, though a term from geology, seems like it should have some poetic use in a novel somewhere given it's literal meaning from the Greek.

Astrobleme : "An eroded remnant of a large crater made by the impact of a meteorite or comet."

Greek: astron 'star' + blēma 'wound'

"Star Wound"

[writingrav]

Speaking of which, shouldn't there be a technical term for pen collectors? Similar to numismatist or philatelist? Any suggestions?

[Neo]

Speaking of which, shouldn't there be a technical term for pen collectors? Similar to numismatist or philatelist? Any suggestions?

A stylophile?

[writingrav]

Nice! More suggestions?

[Neo]

Pen-o-phile?

[writingrav]

Pen-o-phile?

Stylophile is better. I'm going with that unless someone comes up with something better.

[chojo]

My new name for the lavatory is the Phrontistery,a place to think, from the greek phrontistērion, from phrontistēs philosopher, deep thinker, person with intellectual pretensions, from phrontizein to reflect, take thought, from phrontid-, phrontis reflection, thought; akin to Greek phren-, phrēn diaphragm, mind. I love an excuse to get the dictionary out! As for a name for pen people how about Styloinkyologist.

[elaineb]

I got this word from the OED "word of the day" mailing last year:

babblative, adj.
[‘Given to babbling; loquacious, prattling. Also: characterized by an excess of talk; verbose, bombastic.']

[jar]

Speaking of which, shouldn't there be a technical term for pen collectors? Similar to numismatist or philatelist? Any suggestions?

Normal.

[Robert]

Here's a longtime favorite of mine: absquatulate

It's a 19th century "regionalism" that means to leave abruptly

Probably a blend of abscond, squattle(depart) and perambulate.

[elaineb]

Oh, I love that one! Regional from where?

[Robert]

Oh, I love that one! Regional from where?

The Midwestern U.S., if memory serves. I've temporarily misplaced the dictionary (Random House Dictionary of American English) which lists the word and tells a bit of its background.

[brunico]

Styloinkyologist.

Yuck! Words made up from several different languages make classicists and philologists shudder. As the editor of the Manchester Guardian said nearly a hundred years ago, "Television? The word is half Greek, half Latin. No good can come of it."

The Otherwordly tumblr blog is interesting, though it hasn't been updated for a year. And anyone who isn't worried about the occasional obscenity will enjoy the inventiveness of new definitions from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the famous and long-running "antidote to panel games" in the UK. For example, "Biosphere - to purchase a ball" and "Pulpit - what to do with a Jeffrey Archer novel."

Humphrey Lyttleton was the late chairman of the show. An accomplished jazz musician, he was also a president of the Italic Handwriting Society. And yes, he could write!

[Wile E Coyote]

Pen-o-phile?

Stylophile is better. I'm going with that unless someone comes up with something better.

Penist

[fountainpenkid]

hiemal: pertaining to winter

[amk]

I believe pen collectors are calamophiles in French, from the Latin calamus, or quill.

I always imagine a girl with a gun in one hand and a Gold Starry in the other - Calamophile Jane.

[Scrawler]

My new name for the lavatory is the Phrontistery,a place to think, from the greek phrontistērion, from phrontistēs philosopher, deep thinker, person with intellectual pretensions, from phrontizein to reflect, take thought, from phrontid-, phrontis reflection, thought; akin to Greek phren-, phrēn diaphragm, mind. I love an excuse to get the dictionary out! As for a name for pen people how about Styloinkyologist.

I find Phrontistery to be inadequate to the purpose of that place, as that place is purely functional and I think elsewhere. To the best of my knowledge there is no real English word for the entry point to a cloaca maxima, and words like "lavatory" and "toilet" are euphemisms for something unmentionable. As soon as one euphemism becomes well known, and understood, then another needs to be invented. Even the word "latrine" does not serve, because that is of a communal nature.

[brunico]

To the best of my knowledge there is no real English word for the entry point to a cloaca maxima, and words like "lavatory" and "toilet" are euphemisms for something unmentionable.

There is one, a little impolite, the word missing from the phrase "built like a brick ____house."

[Scrawler]

Having been beleaguered by a blatherskite bardolatrist with a propensity for coprolalia, I was obliged to absquatulate, and find succour in the company of a cerulean clad colporteur, whose couthy establishment was a howff for the frondeur. However his habitual floccinaucinihilipilification and logomachy caused my cerebellum to inspissate. So I left and hastened to bar, where I lollygagged with an pulchritudinous ecdysiast who caused me nympholepsy.

[Scrawler]

To the best of my knowledge there is no real English word for the entry point to a cloaca maxima, and words like "lavatory" and "toilet" are euphemisms for something unmentionable.

There is one, a little impolite, the word missing from the phrase "built like a brick ____house."

The "impolite" four letter words are real Saxon English words. They became "rude" after the Norman French took over after 1066. The term "rude" itself means "red" as in "red-faced", or "ruddy" which what the Saxon peasantry were, because they worked out in the fields.