Words About To Be Exuviated

These are the words that dictionaries want to ditch to make room for 2000 some odd additions — essential  terms like “bling” and “OMG” no doubt. I love old, little used words like these. My favorite is muliebrity: the condition of being a woman. Now if I can figure out how to use that in a sentence. Link.

Abstergent: Cleansing

Agrestic: Rural

Apodeictic: Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration

Caducity: Perishableness

Caliginosity: Dimness

Compossible: Possible in coexistence with something else

Embrangle: To confuse

Exuviate: To shed

Fatidical: Prophetic

Fubsy: Squat

Griseous: Somewhat grey

Malison: A curse

Mansuetude: Gentleness

Muliebrity: The condition of being a woman

Niddering: Cowardly

Nitid: Bright

Olid: Foul-smelling

Oppugnant: Combative

Periapt: An amulet

Recrement: Refuse

Roborant: Tending to fortify

Skirr: A whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight

Vaticinate: Prophesy

Vilipend: To treat with contempt

Links (9/3/08)

A handy diagram of what to say and what not to say during sex.

A Japanese company, catering to women who want to divorce, employ professional seducers on their soon-to-be ex-husbands.

The top 25 movies about LA in the past 25 years according to the L.A. Times.

‘Camoflague’ by Chinese artist Liu Bolin.

A great article from k-punk about Wall-E and sci-fi. [h/t Ted]

Really no idea what to make of this blog called “The Pryamid at the Center of the World.” (sic)

A fascinating article about the future of English.

2000 AD: We children beg you, teacher, that you should teach us to speak correctly, because we are ignorant and we speak corruptly…

3000 AD: *ZA kiad w’-exùn ya tijuh, da ya-gAr’-eduketan zA da wa-tAgan lidla, kaz ‘ban iagnaran an wa-tAg kurrap…

[Via Boingboing]

And then there’s this heart-warming tale.

By The Associated Press

MODESTO, Calif. – Police say a man tried to cut off his own arm at a restaurant in Modesto, Calif., because he thought he had injected air into a vein while shooting cocaine and feared he would die unless he took drastic action.

Authorities say 33-year-old Michael Lasiter rushed into the Denny’s restaurant late Friday and started stabbing himself in one arm with a butter knife he grabbed from a table.

They say that when that knife didn’t work Lasiter took a butcher knife from the kitchen and dug it into his arm.

Police Sgt. Brian Findlen says Lasiter told officers he thought he needed to amputate his arm to keep himself from dying from the cocaine injection.

Lasiter was taken to a hospital for treatment of severe cuts.

The Denny’s closed for the night.

That last line is the clincher for me.

Finally, a youtube clip that’s been posted a lot but deserves to be seen more.