Two thousand eight hundred and seventy-four.
I’ve been collecting weird vocabulary for roughly 20 years — culled from reading in books and articles, along with the occasional oddity in conversation, from Jeopardy or on the internet. (And sometimes, I just go fishing in one of my hard-copy dictionaries.)
As you may have guessed, my list now stands at 2,874. Here’s a handful of recent finds:
Collieshangie (KOLL-ee-shang-ee, noun) – Speaking of reading: I’ve been on a Robert Louis Stevenson kick lately, and this literary master — born in Edinburgh in 1850 — sometimes leans on Scottish dialect. Collieshangie is from “Thrawn Janet,” a creepy but well-nigh indecipherable tale strewn with Scots terms like unco, oxter, neuk and howff. While I plan a separate column on those later this year — for St. Andrews Day, Nov. 30 — I couldn’t resist such a delicious mouthful. It means, simply, “a noisy fight or brawl.” Like much Scottish slang, its origin is unknown.
Demurrage (dih-MURR-idge, noun) – This word — related to the verb demur — means “detention in port of a vessel by the shipowner, as in loading or unloading, beyond the time allowed or agreed upon” (Dictionary.com). It can also apply to other cargo-carriers like planes, trucks and railcars. Found in a recent read by Nevil Shute — one of my go-to authors. (Fair to say I’ve been on a Shute kick for, oh — around 20 years, I guess; I recommend Pastoral, Pied Piper, A Town Like Alice and Trustee from the Toolroom.)
Fufu (FOO-foo, noun) – Also spelled fu-fu or foo-foo, this is, according to American Heritage, “a thick, doughlike West African food made by boiling and pounding a starchy vegetable such as yam, plantain, or cassava.”
Majlis (MAHJ-liss, noun) – When capitalized, Majlis refers to the Iranian parliament. Relatedly, it’s a common noun for a public audience held by a ruler to address petitions from his/her subjects. This and the next item were also culled from Shute.
Nipcheese (NIP-cheez, noun) – When I came across this, I naturally assumed it was some sort of snack-cracker; but as this didn’t fit the context, I figured it was obscure 20th-century slang that wouldn’t be in the dictionary — and it is indeed rare, but official: “a ship’s purser.”
That would be the individual who oversees papers and accounts while also tending to passengers’ comfort (sort of like an onboard concierge).
Relatedly, nipcheese can refer to a stingy or miserly person (literally, “food-pincher”).
Ovolo (OH-vuh-low, noun) – Architectural term for “a rounded convex molding” (Collins); but you kinda need a picture for the full sense. So either Google ovolo molding image — or imagine the corner where a vertical wall meets the ceiling, with the right-angle filled by a quarter-cylinder whose rounded edge bulges outward. Sorry if that’s not helpful; I guess that’s why God gave us the internet.
Pelecypod (puh-LESS-uh-pod, noun) – Somewhat outmoded term for a bivalve — well known to seashell-collectors as a mollusk (e.g., scallop, clam, mussel, oyster) with two hinged shells. According to Wikipedia, this class was also once known as Lamellibranchiata — so how ’bout we just stick to “bivalve.”
FWIW, in Greek, pelecypod literally means “ax-foot” — no idea why.
Prognose (prahg-NOCE, verb) – While it looks like a handy new facial insult, this is simply the verb form of prognosis — and thus pronounced like dose, not nose. Fun to say, though!
Tamandua (tuh-MAN-duh-wuh, noun) – Sometimes pronounced with the stress on its last syllable — or alternately, just called a tamandu — this is “either of two arboreal anteaters of Central and South America having a nearly hairless tail” (Merriam-Webster). Derived from the native Tupi language of Brazil, the word literally means “ant-thief.”
Wabi-sabi (WAH-bee-SAH-bee, noun) – This one I came across as “word of the day” at Dictionary.com. I don’t regularly grab these, feeling that someone else did the work to unearth them; but wabi-sabi was too good to resist. That source defines it as “a Japanese aesthetic concept that finds beauty and serenity in objects, landscapes, designs, etc., that are simple, imperfect, and impermanent.” Examples might include admiring the tarnish on an old dish, or ripples of sand about to be washed away by the sea. Wikipedia puts it this way: “acceptance of transience and imperfection.”
Frankly, I think the Japanese have something here; I’m starting to feel like I’ve spent my whole life trying to reach this state.
Not there yet; but working with words and definitions sure helps….
