Curious Spuriosities

The Most Beautiful Word?

Thanks to everyone who dropped by with there favourite words. Some real chestnuts there. I think I would just like to roll naked in all them them, but being a high-stakes, winner-takes-all contest, there had to be just one.

THE WINNER
Why, its "haberdashery" of course! A wonderful, quaint, somewhat old-world term to describe the premisis of either a gentlemen´s outfitter or a purveyor of tailoring materials. In the between-war years, no self-respecting department store or high street would have been without one.

And is a lovely, malleable 5-syllable number as well. Special thanks to Dave Whittle down in Sydney for that one. Your drawing is in the mail... and will be posted on this site soon.

THE HONOURABLE MENTIONS
1. The Runners-up.
This was a tough one, beguiled and seduced as I was by (in no particular order):
a) Alabaster (Cindy F)
b) Sizzle (Jo R)
c) Pugnacious (Stevie B)
d) Galumphing (Cindy F)
e) Inperpetuum (Lavina)
f) Gimble (Cindy F)... again!
g) Sylvan (James L)
h) Oblate (John M)
i) Volition (Nicchia S)
j) Lush (Emma S)

2. The "most spurious word" award:
Goes to John Mallen for "cur". We know that your entry was a complete diddle. But we laughed all the same.

3. The "most curious word" award:
Goes to Mark Wiebusch for "crampon". I love 'em when they're loaded with double meanings. And I love 'em even more when those double meanings are vaguely sexual or scatalogical. And I love 'em the most when they actually have utterly mundane, work-a-day meanings.

4. The "why use a one syllable word when there´s an even better 4-syllable one" award:
Goes to my brother Pete for "dirigible". I agree. Blimp just leaves me limp.

5. The "why not go for 7 syllables?" award:
Bill Lindsay's hierarchy-topping "plenipotentiary". I want that on my business card.

6. The "innaugural Rex Mossop matching trophy and barbeque set for the most visceral word" award:
I couldn't go past Pete Wildemuth's, gloriously bone-rattling "Sironen". Especially when bellowed at full volume with a hearty chuckle beforehand, and delivered at the moment he pounds those mighty knees and busts through the first line of defenders... There should be a Sironen class of Tank or armour-shredding missile or brand of wrecking ball.

7. The "effective invective" award
Though outside the bounds of the orginal terms and conditions, "fuckwit" does the trick every time, without a hint of a shadow of a doubt. Thanks Mallen.

8. Most "eliocephalocratic attempt at a word" award.
Despite the competition having nothing to due with expanding the vocubulary, I dips me lid to "eliocephalocratic", even if my equally eliocephalocratic brother James did invent it.

9. The "best almost-a-word word" award:
Harley Sparke for "enanthema". Is it an athem? Or an enema? Or an anthem to an enema? Or is such analysis completey anathema to the purpose of this contest?

10. The "Why don't we have that in English?" award
I tried to keep it all within the already burgeoning confines of the Englsh language. But when a blouse-buster like "soutien-gorge" rears its rather attractive head from the enemy trenches, I say let's take a few prisoners! Thanks Emma.

THE DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS
1. Quite easily, "mucus" (thanks Hugo Byrne) drew the most groans from the crowd. Sometimes the sound and the meaning get inextricably intermingled.

2. Jerry Keim for "arsewipe". Functional, yes. Beautiful, no.

3. Nicchia Schutt for "pedagogy". If it's not already a crime, it should be.

4."Scrofulous" (my brother James again). I don't even want to look that one up.

A Most Beautiful Word

I like words. I especially like words that sound melodious. Or words you can say over and over again just because they bubble up from the belly, vocal chords, glottus or palette and then then burst like a balloon from the lips or roll off the tongue like silk (not that I advise putting a wad of satin your your mouth for extended periods). Or words you can voraciously masticate for hours like those little soft-plastic space alien toys that used to arrive unannounced in your breakfast cereal bowl and that your mother told you not to eat, but you did anyway. You did, right?

My favourite word used to be "mellifluous", meaning "pleasing to the ear, or flowing with sweetness or honey". So in some cosmic moment of onomatopoeic serendipity (another beautiful word), it actually sounds like it means.

But it has been usurped (another classic), on advisement from my brother Pete, by what I consider to be the most beautiful word in the known universe:

Haemoglobin. ('hE-m&-"glO-b&n) : an iron-containing respiratory pigment of vertebrate red blood cells.

Say it a few times, and I challenge you to disagree. And the best part: because it's a Latin derivative and, Latin being the lingua franca of the scientific and medical communities, it's a world that never needs translation into other languages and thus can be enjoyed by anyone, anywhere: from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.

Other words I like (in no particular order):

• dulcet
• fortuitous
• gurgle
• asynchronous
• flange
• halcyon
• shillelagh
• quagmire
• fenestration
• gimlet

So, I now throw down the glottal gauntlet: comment me back with your favourite words and I'll list them here. If your word wins (judge's decision will be final and no [unpaid] correspondence will be entered into), I'll send you a signed, hand-drawn, pen-and-ink illustration of your word. It'll look perfect when framed and hung in your billiard room, conservatory or crapper.

Competition closes when I say so. Go to it wordsmiths!

20 things to do when you’re really bored:

1. Count the knobbles on your knees
2. Start your autobiography
3. See how long you can hold your breath
4. Play Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 on an invisible keyboard
5. Estimate how many times you broke each of the Ten Commandments in the last month
6. Watch an entire cable TV program in a language for which you have absolutely no knowledge
7. Count the number of times the word “and” appears in the book you’re currently reading. Then count the full stops (assuming the book you’re currently reading is not by e e cummings)
8. If you’re not currently reading a book, start one
9. And no, matchbooks don’t count
10. Wipe your bottom with your other hand
11. Do a crossword without using the clues... Just make them up -- but each word, both across and down, must be a real word
12. Build a LEGO mousetrap
13. Take your pulse
14. Introduce yourself as “Drago” at your next cocktail party. Use a thick Eastern European accent. If people persist and ask what your do, reply, “I will crush you.”
15. See how many Oreos you can stick in your mouth at once
16. See how many said Oreos you can ingest
17. See how many said Oreos you can digest
18. Put a stocking on your head and walk into a bank, liquor store, mini-mart or petrol station Stand patiently in the queue until it’s your turn and quietly and politely complete your desired transaction
19. Trim and shave your pubic hair into the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head
20. Go to a tailor and get yourself measured for a 3-piece suit. Keep returning for fittings until they ask you for money

Books Read in Transit

Peace Kills: America’s Fun New Imperialism – P. J. O’Rourke

• The usual right-wing broadsides at liberals and other weenies. Funny but less convincing that his usual stuff

Good Morning and Good Night - Ranee Margaret of Sarawak

• A wonderfully straightforward and moving account of the second Raja Brooke's wife and her life in Sarawak

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

• Interesting from a secret society/global conspiracy point of view... but a little undernourished in the credible plot and fleshed-out character departments. Riveting, but spent too long resuspending succesive disbeliefs.

Life of Pi – Yann Martell

• And I thought I had it tough!

Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

• And I thought I had it tough!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon

• And I thought I had it tough!

1421 – The Year China Discovered the World – Gavin Menzies

• Interesting but getting lambasted lately for his sketchy research and dubious conclusions

1984 – George Orwell

• Believe it or not, the first time I’d read this. A cracker!

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides– James Boswell

• Samuel Johnson’s Caledonian perambulations captured in minute and amusing detail

Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It – Geoff Dyer

• Funny and insightful snippets of an itinerant traveller

The Rum Diary – Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

• Read post mortem. Hard to believe he tapped this rollicking tale of depravity when he was only 22!

Hell's Angels – Hunter S. Thompson (RIP)

• Also read post mortem. Talk about cajones!

The Code of the Road

10 simple rules for safe and enjoyable travel. Not just for you, but for your hosts and your fellow travellers.

1. Never play golf.

2. Don't grow dreadlocks. Remember: you are white, your hair is straight.

3. Travel by boat or train whenever possible (buses break backs... taxi drivers, bucks).

4. Eat what the locals eat. (unless it involves McDonalds, Burger King or an endangered species. And as a general rule for meat dishes: 2/4 legs: good, 6 legs: bad).

5. Never engage in illegal drugs, commercial sex or radical causes.

6. There is no Rule 6.

7. Never utter the phrase, "Can't anyone here speak English?"

8. Take at least one photograph of each destination, no matter how dull (same goes for journal entries).

9. Climb every mountain. Ford every stream.

10. Avoid wearing the same underwear more than three days in a row.