The Book of Lists

23 OBSCURE AND OBSOLETE WORDS

The average adult recognises 30,000 to 50,000 words, but only uses 10,000 to 15,000. However, there are actually about 1 million words in the English language, some of which — although obscure, forgotten, or rarely used — are worth reviving.

• BOANTHROPY — A type of insanity in which a man thinks he is an ox.

• CHANTEPLEURE — To sing and weep at the same time.

• DIBBLE — To drink like a duck, lifting up the head after each sip.

• EOSOPHOBIA — Fear of dawn.

• EUGERIA — Normal and happy old age.

• EUNEIROPHRENIA — Peace of mind after a pleasant dream.

• EYESERVICE — Work done only when the boss is watching.

• FELLOWFEEL — To crawl into the skin of another person so as to share his feelings, to empathise with.

• GROAK — To watch people silently while they are eating, hoping they will ask you to join them.

• GYNOTIKOLOBOMASSOPHILE — One who likes to nibble on a woman’s earlobes.

• HEBEPHRENIC — A condition of adolescent silliness.

• IATROGENIC — Illness or disease caused by doctors or by prescribed treatment.

• LAPLING — Someone who enjoys resting in women’s laps.

• LIBBERWORT — Food or drink that makes one idle and stupid, food of no nutritional value, ‘junk food’.

• MEUPAREUNIA — A sexual act gratifying to only one participant.

• NEANIMORPHIC — Looking younger than one’s years.

• ONIOCHALASIA — Buying as a means of mental relaxation.

• PARNEL — A priest’s mistress.

• PERISTEROPHOBIA — Fear of pigeons.

• PILGARLIC — A bald head that looks like a peeled garlic.

• PREANTEPENULTIMATE — Fourth from last.

• RESISTENTIALISM — Seemingly spiteful behaviour manifested by inanimate objects.

• SUPPEDANEUM — A foot support for crucifix victims.

33 NAMES OF THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW HAD NAMES

The plain or ornamental covering on the end of a shoelace.

The armhole in clothing.

Spat-out food, such as rinds or pits.

The bottom part of the nose between the nostrils.

Small beadlike pieces of candy, usually silver-coloured, used for decorating cookies, cakes and sundaes.

A dangling curl of hair.

The metal band on a pencil that holds the eraser in place.

The small metal hoop that supports a lampshade.

A 64th note. (A 32nd is a demisemiquaver and a 16th note is a semiquaver.)

Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.

The loop on a belt that keeps the end in place after it has passed through the buckle.

The indentation at the bottom of some wine bottles. It gives added strength to the bottle but lessens its holding capacity.

The long tail on a graduate’s academic hood.

The little finger or toe.

An ornamental stand in the shape of a ship.

The numbness caused by pressure on a nerve; when a limb is ‘asleep’.

The symbol ‘#’ on a telephone handset. Bell Labs’ engineer Don Macpherson created the word in the 1960s by combining octo-, as in eight, with the name of one of his favourite athletes, 1912 Olympic decathlon champion Jim Thorpe.

The space between the eyebrows on a line with the top of the eye sockets.

The end of a hammer head opposite the striking face.

The lights you see when you close your eyes hard. Technically, the luminous impressions are due to the excitation of the retina caused by pressure on the eyeball.

The space between the thumb and extended forefinger.

Creases on the inside of the wrist.

The revolving star on the back of a cowboy’s spurs.

The rounded part on the top of a matchbook.

The rustle of silk.

A mailbox with a protruding receiver to allow people to deposit mail without leaving their cars.

Otter dung.

The projecting prong on a tool or instrument.

Stomach rumbling.

A holder for a handleless coffee cup.

18 SAYINGS OF OSCAR WILDE

Born in Dublin and educated at Oxford, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and a number of successful plays, including Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest. Considered the master of social comedy, Wilde was an expert craftsman of witty sayings and paradoxes. Even on his deathbed, as he sipped champagne, he quipped, ‘I am dying beyond my means.’

• Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.

• I don’t recognise you — I’ve changed a lot.

• Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much.

• The idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

• To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

• Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.

• When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself; and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

• To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

• I can resist anything except temptation.

• What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

• Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

• There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.

• Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

• A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

• Nothing succeeds like excess.

• In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

• Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

16 WELL-KNOWN SAYINGS ATTRIBUTED TO THE WRONG PEOPLE

• Anybody who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad.

Attributed to: W.C. Fields

Actually said by: Leo Rosten (at a dinner, introducing Fields): ‘Any man who hates dogs and babies can’t be all bad.’

• Go west, young man!

Attributed to: Horace Greeley

Actually said by: John Soule (Article, Terre Haute Express, 1851)

• Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!

Attributed to: Mark Twain

Actually said by: Charles Dudley Warner (Editorial, Hartford Courant, August 24, 1897)

• Survival of the fittest.

Attributed to: Charles Darwin

Actually said by: Herbert Spencer (Principles of Biology and earlier works)

• That government is best which governs least.

Attributed to: Thomas Jefferson

Actually said by: Henry David Thoreau (who put it in quotation marks in ‘Civil Disobedience’ and called it a motto)

• Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Attributed to: The Bible

Actually said by: John Wesley (Sermons, no. 93, ‘On Dress’)

• A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Attributed to: Confucius

Actually said by: Lao-Tzu (Tao Tê Ching)

• God helps those who help themselves.

Attributed to: The Bible

Actually said by: Aesop (‘The gods help them that help themselves.’)

• God is in the details.

Attributed to: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Actually said by: François Rabelais (‘The good God is in the details.’)

• If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Attributed to: Harry S Truman

Actually said by: Harry Vaughn (Truman’s friend, whom Truman was quoting)

• Promises are like pie crust, made to be broken.

Attributed to: V.I. Lenin

Actually said by: Jonathan Swift (Polite Conversation: ‘Promises are like pie crust, leaven to be broken.’)

• Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.

Attributed to: Mark Twain

Actually said by: Bill Nye

• When I hear the word ‘culture’, I reach for my gun.

Attributed to: Hermann Göring

Actually said by: Hanns Johst (1933 play Schlageter: ‘Whenever I hear the word “culture”, I reach for my Browning.’)

• Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Attributed to: Vince Lombardi

Actually said by: Red Sanders (UCLA football coach; quoted in Sports Illustrated, 1955)

• Spare the rod and spoil the child.

Attributed to: The Bible

Actually said by: Samuel Butler (Hudibras, 1664)

Attributed to: Muhammad Ali

Actually said by: Drew ‘Bundini’ Brown (Ali’s good friend)

13 SAYINGS OF WOODY ALLEN

Born Allan Konigsberg in Brooklyn on December 1, 1935, Allen began writing quips for gossip columnists at the age of 15. After graduating from high school, he landed a job writing for Sid Caesar’s classic television comedy series Your Show of Shows. In 1961 he branched out from writing to stand-up comedy. He also wrote plays and screenplays before directing his first film, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, in 1966. Among his many hits are Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

• It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better… while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

Side Effects, 1981

• Don’t listen to what your schoolteachers tell you. Don’t pay attention to that. Just see what they look like and that’s how you know what life is really going to be like.

Crimes and Misdemeanors, 1990

• [Intellectuals] are like the Mafia. They only kill their own.

Stardust Memories, 1980

• Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents told us was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat, college.

Annie Hall, 1977

• The prettiest [girls] are almost always the most boring, and that is why some people feel there is no God.

The Early Essays, 1973

• Sex alleviates tension and love causes it.

A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, 1982

• Nothing sexier than a lapsed Catholic.

Alice, 1990

• Love is deep; sex is only a few inches.

Bullets Over Broadway, 1994

• I thought of that old joke, you know, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, ‘Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.’ And the doctor says, ‘Why don’t you turn him in?’ And the guy says, ‘I would but I need the eggs.’ Well, I guess that’s pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd… but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.

Annie Hall, 1977

• To you, I’m an atheist… to God I’m the loyal opposition.

Stardust Memories, 1980

• I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.

• Someone once asked me if my dream was to live on in the hearts of my people, and I said I would like to live on in my apartment. And that’s really what I would prefer.

1987

• There’s this old joke. Two elderly women are in a Catskills Mountain resort and one of ’em says: ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such small portions.’ Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.

Annie Hall, 1977

17 PAIRS OF CONTRADICTORY PROVERBS

• Look before you leap

He who hesitates is lost

• If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again

Don’t beat your head against a brick wall

• Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Out of sight, out of mind

• Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today

Don’t cross the bridge until you come to it

• Two heads are better than one

Paddle your own canoe

• More haste, less speed

Time waits for no man

• You’re never too old to learn

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks

• A word to the wise is sufficient

Talk is cheap

• It’s better to be safe than sorry

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

• Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

• Do unto others as you would have others do unto you

Nice guys finish last

• Hitch your wagon to a star

Don’t bite off more than you can chew

• Many hands make light work

Too many cooks spoil the broth

• Don’t judge a book by its cover

Clothes make the man

• The squeaking wheel gets the grease

Silence is golden

• Birds of a feather flock together

Opposites attract

• The pen is mightier than the sword

Actions speak louder than words

SO TO SPEAK — THE TRUTH ABOUT 16 COMMON SAYINGS

The fastest land snail on record is a garden snail named Archie, who won the 1995 World Snail Racing Championship in Longhan, England, by covering 13 inches in 2 minutes. Archie’s pace was .0062 mph.

According to an old English time unit, a moment takes 1½ minutes. In medieval times, a moment was either 1/40 or 1/50 of an hour, but by rabbinical reckoning a moment is precisely 1/1,080 of an hour.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that all the tea in China in 2003 amounted to 800,345 metric tons.

Although the breadth of a hair varies from head to head, the dictionary definition of hair’s breadth is 1/48 in.

The depth of human skin ranges from 1/100 in. on the eyelid to 1/5 in. on the back.

A 1,200-lb horse eats about 15 lb of hay and 9 lb of grain each day. This amounts to 1/50 of its own weight each day, or 7 times its own weight each year. The real gluttons in the animal kingdom are birds, who consume more than 90 times their own weight in food each year.

The amount paid by magazines for photographs and for written articles varies widely. Both Travel & Leisure magazine and Harper’s magazine pay an average of $350 for a photograph and $1 a word for articles. Based on this scale, a picture is worth 350 words. When The Book of Lists first studied this matter in 1978, a picture was worth 2000 words.

The average wink, or corneal reflex blink, lasts 1/10 sec.

When members of The Book of Lists staff were asked to say ‘Jack Robinson’, their speed varied from ½ to 1 sec. It is acknowledged that this may not be a representative sample of the world population.

Sales figures for the International House of Pancakes show that their 1,164 US restaurants sold a total of 700,000,000 pancakes in 2003.

Time immemorial is commonly defined as beyond the memory of any living person, or a time extending so far back as to be indefinite. However, for the purposes of English law, a statute passed in 1275 decreed that time immemorial was any point in time prior to 1189 — the year when Richard I began his reign.

According to Charles L. Hogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, this figure necessarily depends upon the size of the grasshopper. For the average grasshopper, the knee-high measurement would be about ½ in.

The record for the greatest height attained by a single kite on a single line is 14,509 feet. The kite was flown by a group headed by Richard Synergy at Kincardine, Ontario, Canada, on August 12, 2000.

The fastest bullet is a calibre .50 Saboted Light Armor Penetrator-Tracer M962. Used in M2 machine guns, it travels 4,000 feet (.75 mile) per second. The fastest non-military bullet is the .257 Weatherby Spire Point, which travels 3,825 feet (.72 mile) per second.

In chemistry, water is given a specific gravity, or relative density, of 1.00, because it is used as the standard against which all other densities are measured. By comparison, blood has a specific gravity of 1.06 — only slightly thicker than water.

The largest king’s ransom in history was raised by Richard the Lionheart to obtain his release from the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI in 1194. The English people were forced to contribute almost 150,000 marks to free their sovereign. Nearly as large a ransom was raised by Atahualpa, King of the Incas, when he offered Pizarro a roomful of gold and two roomfuls of silver for his release in 1532. At today’s prices, the ransom would be worth more than £4 million (or $7 million). Unfortunately, it was not sufficient to buy Atahualpa his freedom; he was given a mock trial and executed.

29 WORDS RARELY USED IN THEIR POSITIVE FORM

Negative Form Positive Form

1. Inadvertent Advertent (giving attention; heedful)

2. Analgesia Algesia (sensitiveness to pain)

3. Antibiotic Biotic (of or relating to life)

4. Unconscionable Conscionable (conscientious)

5. Disconsolate Consolate (consoled, comforted)

6. Incorrigible Corrigible (correctable)

7. Uncouth Couth (marked by finesse, polish, etc; smooth)

8. Indelible Delible (capable of being deleted)

9. Nondescript Descript (described; inscribed)

10. Indomitable Domitable (tamable)

11. Ineffable Effable (capable of being uttered or expressed)

12. Inevitable Evitable (avoidable)

13. Feckless Feckful (effective; sturdy; powerful)

14. Unfurl Furl (to draw in and secure to a staff)

15. Disgruntle Gruntle (to put in good humour)

16. Disgust Gust (inclination; liking)

17. Antihistamine Histamine (a crystalline base that is held to be responsible for the dilation and increased permeability of blood vessels which play a major role in allergic reactions)

18. Disinfectant Infectant (an agent of infection)

19. Illicit Licit (not forbidden by law; allowable)

20. Immaculate Maculate (marked with spots; besmirched)

21. Innocuous Nocuous (likely to cause injury; harmful)

22. Deodorant Odorant (an odorous substance)

23. Impeccable Peccable (liable or prone to sin)

24. Impervious Pervious (being of a substance that can be penetrated or permeated)

25. Implacable Placable (of a tolerant nature; tractable)

26. Ruthless Ruthful (full of compassion or pity)

27. Insipid Sipid (affecting the organs of taste; savoury)

28. Unspeakable Speakable (capable of being spoken of)

29. Unwieldy Wieldy (strong;

18 UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS

Here are 18 words and phrases that have no equivalent in English; edited by the Book of Lists authors from Howard Rheingold’s They Have A Word For It, published by Sarabande.

The attempt to revive a dead love affair. Literally, ‘reheated cabbage’. The result of such a culinary effort is usually unworkable, messy and distasteful.

Unusual appetites and cravings of pregnant women. Dohada is a word older than the English language. There is a scientific basis for dohada: women who want to eat dirt (a condition called pica) or chalk, are attempting to ingest essential minerals.

A gift brought home from a husband to his wife after he has stayed out late. Literally, ‘dragon fodder’. In decades past, men went to bars on Saturday night with the wrapped gifts prepared in advance. This word can also be used for all gifts or acts performed out of guilt for having too much fun, such as gifts from employees to bosses, children to parents, students to teachers, and so on.

The brilliantly witty response to a public insult that comes into your mind only after you have left the party. Literally, ‘the spirit of the staircase’. Observes author Rheingold, ‘Sometimes, this feeling about what you ought to have said at a crucial moment can haunt you for the rest of your life.’

A mother who pushes her children into academic achievement. A derogatory term that literally means ‘education mama’. The pressure on Japanese students is severe and intense — but they are hardly the only victims of parental pushing. The American fad for using flashcards and the like, to create infant prodigies, is practised by fathers and mothers.

A mixture of pleasure and pride, particularly the kind that a parent gets from a child. It is something one relishes, as in ‘May you only get nakhes from your son!’

This is a noun which describes the soul’s innermost desires; the angelic parts of human nature. Listening to one’s inner instinct to perform a kindly act is to let our ondinnonk be our guide.

The feeling a person has for someone he once loved but now does not. In the original Russian it applies to a man, but has become applicable for both sexes.

The literal translation is ‘joy in damage’. It is the pleasure one feels as a result of someone else’s misfortune, like seeing a rival slip on a banana peel. Schadenfreude is not as strong as taking revenge, because it’s a thought or a feeling, not an action. But when your noisy neighbour’s car breaks down, and you’re secretly pleased — that’s schadenfreude.

To hesitate in recognising a person or thing, as happens when you are introduced to someone whose name you cannot recall. A way out of this social gaffe is to say, ‘Pardon my sudden tartle!’

A mythical monster that scratches at the door. The very same ‘monster’ haunts the doors of South Carolina, America and West Africa.

A monumentally severe hangover. The inspiration for the early American comic strip ‘The Katzenjammer Kids’. On New Year’s Eve, it is common for one German to remark to another, ‘You’re setting yourself up for a real Katzenjammer.’ (The party in question may require some ‘Drachenfutter’.)

This describes an attitude of indifference to political and social issues. It is derived from a satirical political journal called L’uomo qualunque: the man in the street. For example, a great many people believe that the US president is elected by a majority of qualified voters. In fact, only 29% of all voters led to Ronald Reagan’s ‘landslide victory’ in 1984.

This denotes blissful dreams. In English we have nightmares, but no word for waking feeling happy. In Bantu, the word is further defined as a ‘legendary, blissful state where all is forgiven and forgotten’. The African-American equivalent for bilita mpash is a ‘beluthathatchee’, believed to be traced to African-American slang from its Bantu roots.

Zalatwic means using acquaintances to accomplish things unofficially. It means going around the system to trade, to evade exchanges in cash. Since shortages seem to be a fact of social life, these exchanges can range from the profound (a new apartment) to the menial (a new pair of trainers).

A hari kuyo is a shrine for broken sewing needles. In Japan’s Wakayama Province, every village has a shrine where a periodic service is performed for the broken needles. The belief is that the sewing needles worked hard all their lives and died in the service of those who used them. When they break, they are put to rest on a soft bed of tofu.

Salogok is young black ice. It is a famous fact that Eskimos have 17 different words for kinds of snow. In Hunters of the Northern Ice, a book by Richard K. Nelson, there is an appendix on Eskimo ice-words, titled ‘Eskimo Sea-Ice Terminology’. A sample from this work is ‘Salogok: nilas, or black young ice: a thin, flexible sheet of newly formed ice which will not support a man, is weak enough to enable seals to break through it with their heads to breathe, and breaks through with one firm thrust of the unaak.’

Comparing yams to settle disputes. In New Guinean culture nobody discusses what everybody knows concerning sensitive subjects. Breaking this code of polite behaviour results in violent disputes. Yet yams are so important in Kiriwana, that people boast about their own yams, to the point of starting a fight. Settling this fight calms everyone down.

7 WORDS IN WHICH ALL THE VOWELS APPEAR IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

• Abstemious: adj., practising temperance in living.

• Abstentious: adj., characterised by abstinence.

• Annelidous: adj., of the nature of an annelid.

• Arsenious: adj., of, relating to, or containing arsenic.

• Casesious: adj., having a blue colour.

• Facetious: adj., straining to be funny, flippant, especially at the wrong time.

• Fracedinous: adj., productive of heat through putrefaction.

5 REMARKABLE MESSAGES IN BOTTLES

In 1825, one Major MacGregor bottled a message and dropped it into the Bay of Biscay: ‘Ship on fire. Elizabeth, Joanna, and myself commit our spirits into the hands of our Redeemer Whose grace enables us to be quite composed in the awful prospect of entering eternity.’ The note was found 1½ years later, but the major and his party had already been rescued.

In the nineteenth century, a British sailor, perhaps in an attempt to found a lonely hearts club, threw a bottled marriage proposal into Southampton waters as his ship left port for India. At Port Said, on the return journey, he was walking along the quay and saw a bottle bobbing in the water. He retrieved it, opened it and read his own proposal for marriage.

In 1916, a British seaman saw a bottle bobbing in the north Atlantic. He fished it from the water, opened it… and read the final message sent from the Lusitania before it sank, taking with it some 1,198 passengers: ‘Still on deck with a few people. The last boats have left. We are sinking fast. The orchestra is still playing bravely. Some men near me are praying with a priest. The end is near. Maybe this note will…’ And there it ended.

In 1714, Japanese seaman Chunosuke Matsuyama embarked on a treasure hunt in the Pacific. His ship was caught in a gale and sank, but he and 44 shipmates managed to swim to a deserted coral reef. Matsuyama and his companions eventually died of starvation and exposure, but before they did, Matsuyama attempted to send word home. He wrote the story on chips of wood, sealed them in a bottle, and tossed it into the sea. The bottle washed ashore 150 years later on the beach where Matsuyama grew up.

In 1948, a Russian fisherman found a bottle in the sand bordering Vilkilski Strait in the Arctic. A message was inside, written in both Norwegian and English. It was incomprehensible even when translated: ‘Five ponies and 150 dogs remaining. Desire hay, fish and 30 sledges. Must return early in August. Baldwin.’ The bizarre message became clear when it was learned that polar explorer Evelyn Baldwin had sealed the note and sent it in 1902. He managed to survive the Arctic without ever receiving the hay, fish or sledges. Whether or not he made it back in August is unknown.