Logophilia
I’m reading The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, recommended to me by M E-L of Ishbadiddle, and I love it. It’s part SF, part fantasy, all bildungsroman. Click that link if you gagged on bildungsroman . . . cuz guess what, kids, this post is about words.
Provided the rest of the book is good stuff, I don’t mind an onslaught of obscure words. Reginald Hill’s Dialogues of the Dead comes to mind — a book I loved right up until the resolution of the mystery, then hated. But Hill’s book was all about a love of words, and I learned many cool ones by reading it. Words like bheesty (a water-carrier) and dogsbody (a drudge). Yeah, I knew ‘dogsbody’ from watching Black Adder, but Hill’s book forced me to look it up for a change.
With The Shadow of the Torturer, I’m not sure how many of these are real words and how many are neologisms. I haven’t had a chance yet to look up every last one, but I intend to. Meanwhile, I’m scribbling strange words on my bookmark.
Here they are. Recognize any of ’em?
thurible
paphian
anacreontic
epopt
matross
peltast
cataphract
anagnost
psychopomp
uhlan
caique
paterissa
baldric
sabretache
bartizan
flageolet
lansquenet
. . . and several more. Some of these I think I should know (baldric, psychopomp, thurible, cataphract) but many of them are as familiar as the surface of Neptune.
I know obscure words bother some readers, and they bother me, too, when they’re out of place. In this book, they all seem strangely appropriate. (Yes, I’m still tweaked over the opening of Stephen King’s Gunslinger. Apotheosis of deserts, really.)
Here’s one I thought Gene Wolfe had made up: sardonyx. But I was wrong.
How about you guys? Have any favorite obscure words?
D.
Brittle
Typical doctor, I’ve never handled my own illness well. Even as a kid, I would become emotionally fragile with a common cold. Fever, in particular, tended to lay me bare. I remember bursting into tears over an episode of All in the Family.
I’ve never had that male barrier to crying — not much of one, anyway. I guess my father never shook me by the shoulders (the way Don Corleone rough-housed Johnny Fontane in The Godfather — Be a man! What’s the matter with you?) No, he tended to push my older brother my way, saying, “Go see what’s wrong with him.” Like that ever helped.
It took me a while to learn you simply didn’t cry in front of people. Least of all people you cared about. You could tear up and discretely wipe your eyes — yeah, that’s cool, no one looks askance at that. But the big emotional outpouring? Nah. Folks tend to think you’re tetched.
The urge to tear accompanies any of my strong emotions. In the past, I may have told the story of the time I developed an autoradiograph and got the result I needed to complete my PhD thesis. I called Karen and she couldn’t understand why I was crying. For me, that autoradiograph meant seven years of my life brought to a successful conclusion. I was RELIEVED. What couldn’t she understand about that?
When her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, that choked me up, too, and I think it confused her. Why should I be that upset over her father’s illness?
Certain memories I keep at a distance because, well, they’re just too embarrassing. Back in high school, I was a bit too emotionally naked for my girlfriend at times. That’s an understatement, you understand. I suspect she thought I was a raving lunatic.
But that’s adolescence, right? We get to write off lots of bullshit, blaming it all on childhood or adolescence. But I know I’m the same me, older and wiser perhaps, better able to keep things under wraps. One thing I’ve learned is that the emotions of the moment are not to be trusted — and are certainly not to be acted upon.
I’ll be a lot better once this crud passes. Once I can stop taking enough cold meds to anesthetize a draft horse. I won’t have to fend off these wandering thoughts and emotions that rise unbidden from the limbic system, fingernails on the cortical chalkboard.
Maybe my muse will wake up, too.
D.
Krugy gets a threesome
You remember Krugy, my wandering sperm? That lucky boy has seen some lush boobage as well as some delightful back-door action. Now, he’s experienced every spermatozoon’s wet dream: the ménage à trois.
First came Kris,
Then came Rella,
Then Krugy got down to some hot pussy action:
Six strange and wonderful things
It’s Lyvvie‘s meme. Blame her.
ONE
Karen: You got the money?
Me: Yeah. You hang on to it.
Karen: No, you can hang on to it.
Me: No, I’ll just spend it on cheap whores.
Karen: I’d like to know where you intend to find expensive whores around here.
**more below the cut**
Caption Contest
Win . . . um, the respect and love of your peers?
Hat tip to Smart Bitch Psycheros (in the comment thread) for this lovely image:
Caption away, folks!
D.
Better living through drugs
I’m better today. Really, I am. Last night, I tanked up on meds (all strictly legal) and got the first decent night’s sleep I’ve had in a week — at least six hours, give or take. Had the ER called me to see a patient, I would have called 911 so that the ambulance would bring me in. “I’m here!” I would have told the shocked ER staff. “But you’ll have to fix me first!”
But I knew what I needed. Heal thyself, yatta yatta. I forced myself to drink 2.5 liters of water and felt MUCH better for it. I can’t emphasize this enough to my patients (and to y’all): with upper respiratory tract infections, and especially with sore throats, push fluids like crazy. Last night, it was all that kept me from a trip to the ER.
Forcing down 2.5 liters was a bitch, however. It would have been easier to admit myself to the hospital and write my own orders: IV fluids, steroids, antibiotics, and a nice walloping dose of narcotics to suppress the cough. It would have been more fun — some of those ER nurses are damned cute.
Karen’s a bit better, too; these new opiate patches are doing wonders for her pain. Now if only we could do something for the nausea which accompanies the patches. Or, at least we think the nausea is a medication side effect. I bought a home pregnancy test kit today to play it safe. (No, it would not be a good thing if Karen were pregnant. You don’t want to know all the weird meds she takes. And, believe me, I have the clinical background to know what this stuff does to fetuses. Not cool.)
To all you proofreaders out there (um, SHAINA!) sorry if there are errors here. My eyes are half-lidded. I’m going to take a nap before tonight’s Medical Executive Committee meeting; if I don’t nap now, I’ll probably do it during the meeting.
D.
On behalf of all men with latex allergies . . .
I would like to register a complaint.
Would I want to be a condom-tester? Would I ever! (That would be my first choice of dream jobs, followed shortly by Gynecologist Specializing in the Age 18-24 Demographic, or the ever popular Purveyor of Moustache Rides.) But there’s one small problem: we’re not talking about just any condom.
Our team is developing a type of spray can into which the man inserts his penis first. At the push of a button it is then coated in a rubber condom. It works by spraying on latex from nozzles on all sides. We call it the ‘360 degree procedure’ — once round and from top to bottom. It’s a bit like a car wash.
Damn it, I’m allergic to latex. Spray this sh!t on me and my groin will become a giant welt. Nevertheless, I’m intrigued, and I can imagine dozens of gorgeous female UC Berkeley engineering students clamoring to be the first to see this device in action, crying, Oh, Walnut, pick me! Pick me! and, Omigod! New technology is SUCH a turn-on.
The manufacturer, Vinico (the people who brought you the Multi-Orgasmus-Kondum, 2 Kondome+penisring), wants men:
We are looking for 30 Condom-Testers. Your job is testing the new condom. We are looking for men with a penislengh* from 9 until 12 cm and 15 until 20 cm. Men between 13 to 14 cm are welcome, too**. You should have experience with condoms and beeing almost 18 years old. Your data will be kept very safe. If you have any questions, please contact us.
I have experience with condoms and I beeing almost 18 years old, or at any rate I beeing more 18 years old than 99 years old. But that latex business, oooh. Ouch. Hives are such a buzz kill.
Hat tip to the lovely May, who discovered the spray-on Kondome at Tim Worstall’s place.
Porno Gingerbread Men (see post below) and spray-on condoms. Any more holiday gift ideas?
D.
*Oh, those clever Germans and their made-to-order compound nouns . . . but I’m pretty sure the word is Shvanzelangen.
**Karen, quick! Where’s our metric ruler!Â
Five millimeters, cut
Or is Mr. Gingerbread Man uncircumcised?
No matter. A little nibble will fix that foreskin problem! (Click photo if you would like your very own Gingerbread Man . . . or anatomically correct G-Woman.)
Hat tip to Blue Gal for pointing me towards this “controversy.” Religious Floridians are all astir over the six naughty “pornaments” marketed by Spencer’s. Says Hillcrest Baptist Church Rev. Jim Patterson,
“It is just sad they have to stoop to this kind of thing to defame Christmas. It says we are nothing more than sexual acts or psychical being and we are much more than that. We are spiritual beings and this is a spiritual holiday. And, why bring it to that level. It makes no sense to me.”
Proving yet again that these dopes lack a sense of humor. When I think how I nearly pissed myself laughing over what South Park did to Judaism (Jews worship Moses, a spirit inhabiting a giant spinning dreidel, by coercing their children to make macaroni art projects at Jewbilee Camp), a reindeer with a boner is the least the religious right could endure. Hey, guys: Spencer’s didn’t even mess with Santa Claus, let alone Jesus. I call that respect.
These guys hate sex. Hate it hate it hate it. Will someone with a better understanding of the history of Christian sex-hatred please explain this to me? I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with Jesus, and I seem to recall St. Augustine was an ex-libertine turned prude. Was it Augie’s fault?
D.
‘Tis the season
‘Tis the season for runny-nosed Tiny Tims to cough tuberculous fomites into my dumbstruck mouth. My head feels like a helium balloon, my throat full of thorns. When I finish this post, I’m dosing up on cold remedies and with any luck I’ll be comatose by midnight.
‘Tis the season for well-meaning patients to shower our office with fudge and cookies and See’s Candy. I love you. I hate you. Don’t you realize I have no self-control?
‘Tis the season for other well-meaning patients to ask, “Are you ready for Christmas?” or “Get all your Christmas shopping done yet?” I know this shouldn’t bother me, but it does. It makes me long for those patients who, with one glance at my swarthy, Semitic good looks, assume I’m tribe. NO, I’m not ready for Christmas, and neither are my atheist son and wife. I’m not even ready for Hanukkah! (You try finding candles here in the boonies.) Something about those questions rankle. They remind me I’m an outsider, a poor bastard who has to rub his fist against frosty windows to view scenes from Norman Rockwell’s wet dreams.
‘Tis the season that gives me the blues.
D.
P.S.: Sorry about the downer post. Sex tomorrow, I promise — thanks to Blue Gal and May for a couple o’ hot tips.