Conference thebay::joyoflex

		      The Superior Person's Book of Words
				  Peter Bowler
				     Godine


This book is a masterpiece.  Basically, Bowler is a word collector, who has
obviously been collecting words for a very long time -- in the most unusual
places, and with a very sharp eye.

He has some real gems.  Did you know that insolation means getting a sun tan,
oniomania is an irrestible urge to buy things, a ranarium is a frog farm, a
charientism is an elegantly veiled insult (the book is full of them).  To top
things off, though, Bowler is *very* funny -- with an amazingly dry wit. 
Here are some good examples:

	MERKIN n.  A pubic wig for women, or, to quote Grose's Dictionary
	of the vulgar tongue, "counterfeit hair for women's privy parts."
	Do not ask the author to explain this.  The lexicographer's duty
	is only to record.  To others remains it to remark, with Ambrose
	Bierce, "Can such things be?"

	PROCERITY n.  Tallness, height.  "I think you showed great procerity
	out there, darling," you say proudly to your gangling teenager after
	she has done her bit in the ballet class's end-of-term performance."

	FORMICATE v.  To swarm like ants.  "Principal, I thought you ought
	to know -- the Seventh Grade is formicating all over the quadrangle."

Sort of like Dr. Johnson on drugs.

I had so much fun with the book that I sent my sweetie a mail message using
some of Bowler's words.  Here's what I came up with (with the translation
following):


By my halidom, I think you're a saporous bellibone.  I want to engage in
subderisorious persiflage with you, not to mention ante-jentacular (heck,
post-jentacular, or post-prandial, or pre-prandial) paraphilemia -- after I
decorticate you, of course.  Even though your genual nodosity is gelogenic, you
still give me aprosexia, make me vecordious, turn me into a regular gongoozler. 
Forgive my battolgy, but I think you're vulpine, unfungible, with nefandous
muliebrity.  I jactate about you often.  I want to nidificate with you (in
front of the fire?).  You give me nympholepsy!  I want to kiss your opisthenar,
to the point of palinoia!  Please don't think I'm too ultracrepidarian, but
there is no succedaneum for you.  Forgive my sermocination, my little pigsney,
but I think you're the most sapid yanker I've ever known!  And I mean every
word of that!


Wow!  You're sweet, sexy, and fascinating.  I want to engage in friendly
teasing with you, not to mention making love before breakfast (or after
breakfast, or after dinner, or before dinner) -- after I take off all your
clothes, of course.  Even though your knobby knees are kind of funny, you still
make me mad, goofy -- I can't think of anything but you.  Forgive me for
repeating myself, but I think you're a fox, there's nobody like you, you are
quite a gal!  I boast about you often.  I want to cuddle with you (in front of
the fire?).  I desire you all the time.  I dream about kissing the back of your
hand -- it's almost an obsession with me.  I hope I don't sound like I'm going
overboard, but there's nobody like you.  Forgive my going on like this, my
dear, but you're the most fascinating woman I've ever known.  And I mean every
word of that!

    This sounds like an ideal text for "Fictionary," my family's favorite
    game (Next in line:  "Pictionary.").  Great pointer -- my family and I
    have worn out "Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary" -- no more lodes to mine there. 
    But Bowler sounds like a whole new vein!  Thanks!!!  I'm off to
    _Borders_ Bookstore in Framingham MA to order my copy...  whooppee!! :-)

    
    This book sounds like a sesquipedalian's wet dream.
    
    Would it be possible to state the ISBN number and/or where to get
    it from outside of the US of A?
    
    1,001 thanks
    
    Steve

    An early form of Bowler was a man called Ivor Brown. He published two
    books in the thirties (or maybe before, but my copies are printed
    according on wartime paper). The first was called A Word in Your Ear
    and the second was called - I think - Another Word. They're both
    fairly short (I wouldn't be surprised if someone had done a reprint
    with both in one volume), both worth having. I don't believe they're
    in print any more, but if you see a copy secondhand snap it up.
    
    b

    
    I'd like to recommend "Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency" by the
    author Douglas Adams.  He wrote the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

    See also 37.7 and other replies, for comments about Gordon's "The
    Transitive Vampire" and "The Well-Tempered Sentence," both heartily
    recommended...
    
    -b

				Anguished English
				 Richard Lederer
				     Wyrick
				ISBN 0-941711-04-8


I'm sure this has probably got its own note devoted to it, but I had to put it
in.  It's undoubtedly my favorite lexy book (and Lederer is one of my favorite
authors -- I wish he'd give me a comission).

My guess is that a good 10% of the stuff in JOYOFLEX originally came from
Lederer.  Do you remember the famous translation gaffes ("Is forbitten to steal
towels please ..."), insurance claim whoppers ("Coming home, I drove into the
wrong house and collided with a tree I didn't have."), ad howlers ("Lost: small
apricot poodle.  Reward.  Neutered.  Like one of the  family.")?

There's lots more, including Berraisms, student errors, court bloopers,
newspaper errors, wacky headlines, malapropisms, and misspellings.  Here are
some of my favorites:

	A history of the world taken from errors in student essays,
	starting with Egyptian hydraulics and ending with the Arch-
	Duck's assignation.  My favorite part was the Elizabethan era:

		Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen."  As
		queen, she was a success.  When Elizabeth
		exposed herself before her troops, they all
		shouted "hurrah."  Then her navy went and
		defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

	A court transcription involving a child:

		Q.  And lastly, Gary, all your responses must
		    be oral.  O.K.?
		A.  Oral.
		Q.  How old are you?
		A.  Oral.

	An unintentionally funny headline:

		BRITISH LEFT WAFFLES ON FALKLAND ISLANDS

	A mixed metaphor from Capitol Hill:

		Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming 
		in the air and darkening in the sky, but I'll
		nip him in the bud.

	On the menu of a Polish hotel:

		Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup
		with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger;
		roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten
		up in the country people's fashion.

I've got two copies of this book -- one at work and one at home.  This is one
of maybe 3 books in the world that get me literally falling on the floor.  I
have never picked it up without laughing out loud.  If you don't already have
it -- highly recommended!

    G'day,
    
    
    I quite like
    
    Language in a modern World - Simeon Potter, Penguin Books, 1906, with
    revisions to 1971. As a general intro to linguistics/grammar/language
    its quite a readable book.
    
    
    
    I saw a book entitled 'The Cunning Linguist' a while back, but I think
    it was a muder mystery novel....
    
    
    
    derek

    ... I think I'll use this p_n exactly once more, in SoapBox; but they
    probably won't know what it means!  :-)
    
    (-: o'course, I can't actually figger out what it means in the above
    context, but did I let _that_ little detail (oh er) stop me?   like NOT :-)

    
    	I've always been partial to Willard Espy's Almanac of Words At
    	Play and its sequel.
    
    	Ralph

    G'day,
    
     At the risk of causing a ratholisation ;-) for a moment.....
    
    
    presumably the need for a merkin is to satisfy the requirements of
    James Bond in one of his films....
    
    
    
    (dubious comment follows...)
    
    
    She: Do you like me as a blonde?  (she had been a brunettte some
    moments before)
    
    
    
    Bond:   As long as collar and cuff match....
    
    
    derek

    
    Typical bleeding Aus that.  When the we here are trying to be literery
    and clever and all that, our down-under friend mentions muff!!
    
    "If it's not about beer and some Sheila having it away with a roo, then
    I aint going to read it".

    G'day,
    
    And the derivation of sheila for a female is interesting too.... ;-)
    
    
    I suspect you are becoming mixed up with the cartoon built for export
    consumption entitled "Dot and the Kagaroo" (but for the record it was
    a mother roo.... not a boomer.  (Wallaby darn'd)
    and the only ale mentioned in it is Adam's...
    
    and I was not the first to mention such things... if one were to read
    back a few notes, you would find some other reference you know...
    
    
    And Oz has generated some reasonable books too...
    
    A fortunate life - W Facey
    The UBD Sydney street directory
            to name but two...
    
    
    derek
    
    

			The Official Politically Correct 
			Dictionary and Handbook

			Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf

			Villard Books

			ISBN 0-679-74113-5

			$10


    A very clever processed tree carcass devoted to that good old chestnut,
    political correctness.  Though the book veers off into the P.J.
    O'Rourke - hey wait a minute, that's not so funny - truly gross and
    insensitive - Republican style humor, there's plenty of laughs without
    the authors ever really having to force it.  And in addition to
    attacking PC, they also attack BS (bureaucratially suitable) language,
    so there is some balance.  They also don't see themselves as the
    saviors of Western civilization as do some PC baiters.  

    Anyway, the book has some real gems (mostly real, not made-up), like
    the following:

    	o   Lazybones -- person of torpor

    	o  "That's not an 'error' -- that's a 'differently fielded'
    	grounder!" said the batchild to the ballchild as the shortstop
    	bobbled the ball.

    	o  Canine-American -- a dog who resides in the United States

    	o  Boring -- charm-free, differently interesting

    	o  Todd's favorite movie was "The Good, the Bad, and the
    	Cosmetically Different."

    	o  Housewife -- domestic incarceration survivor, unpaid sex worker,
    	domestic artist

    	o  "A companion animal capable of providing personal transport,
    	a companion animal capable of providing personal transport, my
        monarchy for a companion animal capable of providing personal 
    	transport!"

    	o  Femstruate -- to discharge the femses

    	o  Fatso -- person of size

    	o  Gingerbread person, person of ginger (The second one is my own
    	creation.  See?  It's easy and fun!  Try it yourself!)

    	o  Shoplifter -- nontraditional shopper

    	o  Meat -- processed animal carcasses

    	o  "He's 'temporarily metabolically abled,'" enthused Dr.
    	Frankenstein!

    	o  Dirty old man -- sexually focused chronologically gifted
    	individual

    	o  Indian pudding -- indigenous pudding

    	o  "Strips of flesh cut from the slaughtered carcasses of cruelly
    	exploited nohuman animals of the pig family and two nonhuman animal
    	products stolen from poultry, over easy!" shouted the waitron at
    	the Biocentric Diner.

    	o  Eskimo pie -- indigenous Alaskan pie

    	o  Honey -- stolen nohuman animal sweetener

    	o  Late -- in the early stages of finalization

    	o  Death -- failure to fulfill one's wellness potential, diagnostic
    	misadventure of high magnitude, negative patient care outcome

	o  Kill -- neutralize, alter the health of, render nonviable

	o  Lie -- Categorical inaccuracy, counterfactual proposition,
	inoperative statement, strategic inexactitude, strategic
	misrepresentation

    	o  Bombing -- air support, armed reconnaisance, servicing of a 
    	target, visitation of a site, terrain alteration

    	o  Unemployed -- indefinitely idled, involuntarily leisured, in an
    	orderly transition between career changes, nonrenewed

    	o  Firing -- rightsizing, career-change opportunity, career 
    	alternative enhancement program, decruit, downsizing, streamlining, 
    	restructuring, staff resource management, negative employee retention, 
    	outplacement, reduction activities

    Thought you'd enjoy those last two!

    There's only one place where the book goes wrong.  They've got a section
    where they don't just attacks words, but ideas.  The words (usually) speak
    for themselves, but the ideas stand up pretty well to their (obviously)
    ideological attack.  Also, the book has both a PC-to-English and
    English-to-PC section, as well as the same for BS, both of which add almost
    no new material.

    	-- Cliff (member of the mutant albino genetic recessive global
    	   minority and tree murderer)