Tag Archive for Books / Literature

Intriguing Words – 17th April 2009


With the weekend approaching fast and many people getting in the partying mood here are a few of my favourite drink related words… great for trivia at the Friday night party… or for a hangover the next morning. So if you’re Poculent here are a few words especially for you!

On Drinking:

Balderdash: adulterated wine

Barleyhood: bad temper induced by drinking

Cagg: a solemn vow not to drink for a certain period of time

Compotation: a drinking bout

Cropsick: stomachache from too much drink

Doundrins: afternoon drinking

Drinkmoney: money used to buy liquor

Malmsey: A strong, sweet wine

Poculent: fit for drinking

Pot-valiant: courageous because of drink

Shandygaff: a mixture of beer and ginger-beer

Shotclog: a drinking companion tolerated because he/she pays for the drinks

Slipslop: bad liquor

Snowbroth: very cold liquor

Sorbition: the act of drinking or sipping

Supernaculum: drinking the last drop from a glass or bottle

Swilbowl: a heavy drinker

Usquebaugh: the water of life (whiskey)

Intriguing Words – 4th September 2008

Everyone is afraid of something… there is even a fear of phobias!

Fear of… phobia

Airplanes                       aeronausiphobia

Animals                          zoophobia

Blood                              hematophobia, hemophobia, hemaphobia

Books                             bibliophobia

Everything                    pantaphobia, panophobia, panphobia, pamphobia

Eyes                               ommatophobia, ommetaphobia

Flowers                         anthophobia

Ghosts                           phasmophobia

Insects                           entomophobia

Mice                               musophobia, muriphobia

Numbers                       arithmophobia

Paper                             papyrophobia

Pope (or the Papacy)   papaphobia

Rain                                ombrophobia, pluviophobia

Sleep                               hypnophobia

Snow                               chionophobia

Teeth                              odontophobia

Vegetables                     lachanophobia

Water                             hydrophobia, aquaphobia

Words                             logophobia, verbophobia

Phobologophobia           fear of phobia words.

Intriguing Words – 9th May 2008

We all have to eat!

Abligurition              spending lavishly on food and drink

Accubation               lying down at meals

Ambigu                     dinner in which the various courses are served together

Antepast                   anything taken before a meal in order to whet the

                                   appetite

Aristology                 luncheon talk

Coenaculous             one who enjoys a midnight snack

Comessation             riotous feasting

Epulation                   a banquet, feast

Gaudy                        a feast, a day of plenty

Groaking                    staring at someone eating with the hope that he/

                                    she’ll give you something

Jentacular                  relating to breakfast

Lickerish                    squeamish in the choice of food

Pingle                          to eat with little or no appetite

Puddingtime              dinnertime (time when pudding – the first course –

                                     was served)

Simpsonize                 to dilute milk with water

Smellfeast                   an uninvited dinner guest (one who smells a feast)

Trenchermate            a table companion

Poem of the Day – 8th May 2008

Prophecy of Celtic Ancients Revisited

Clarions sound out aloud
in the Hibernian far-off hills
calm brass voices melodiously sound
of a reborn past’s future will;
when tides turning around—
their crested pearls still
and steady wash back
onto the forgotten beach
of time’s gone-by sands—
the reign of women’s femininity.
Water-flow harmonies of harps
awaken ancient Celtic ideas;
Nature’s blood of Breton culture
flows and fills up every vein,
as musical flutes return
our beliefs to the ways
of woman’s empathy with nature—
a religion again feminine based.
Acclaiming once more her wise-soul
and gentle creativity of birth;
her Nature-imbued feminine soul
and its constant gift to the Earth.

 

 

Published in, The Green Dragon No 7, Summer 1998

 

Intriguing Words – 5th May 2008

For this ‘Intriguing words’ I would like to look at manias… in particular “word manias”:

Coprolalomania             the use of foul language

Graphomania                morbid desire for writing

Hellenomania                using cumbersome Greek or Latin terms instead of

                                        readily understandable English words

Klazomania                    compulsory shouting

Lalomania                      abnormal interest in speech

Logamania                     overtalkativeness

(or logomonomania)

Metromania                  mania for writing verses

Onomatomania             mental derangement with regard to words

                                        (inability to recall a certain word,

                                        attaching special significance to a word,

                                        and so forth)

Scribblemania               mania for scribbling

(or scribbleomania)

Scribomania                  writing a long succession of unconnected words

Verbomania                  morbid talkativeness

Intriguing Words – 4th May 2008

Here are some intriguing words I felt I wanted to share! For the first post from “Intriguing Words” I have chosen to list the literary forms of fortune-telling:

Literary Divination

Name                       Divination By…

Bilbliomancy                 books, or by verses of the Bible

Graptomancy               handwriting

(gapomancy)

Logomancy                   words

Onomomancy               from names or the letters of a name

(nomancy                      (number of vowels, etc.)

onomancy)

Rhapsodomancy           picking a passage of poetry at random

Stichomancy                 lines of verse in books chosen at random

Poem of the Day – 2nd May 2008

This before when becomes.

All of me is still now,

when I have been waiting

for this moment as if it were

the onset of a magnificent

storm, that would change my

world in strangest ways?

and being born, your gentle

hands were moulding tiny

miracles out of the matter

of my heart… and really

what I felt, was calm….

 

Extract from:

Ultraviolet Roses & Carbon

© Copyright Patrick James 2001

Poem of the Day – 11th April 2008

Stalingrad ‘42

You bound a book, carefully

affixing each page together

with bones and gave it a

cover of human flesh, the

ink was more vermilion than

the bloodshed of regiments

of women with their infants

still in their arms.

God, even now, still retains

a warring niche in the world

for himself — I knelt down

on one knee and cried.

 

Extract from:

Ultraviolet Roses & Carbon

© Copyright Patrick James 2001