If words are weapons, they are also toys.

I just purchased 'The Superior Person's Book of Words' by Peter Bowler from Amazon.com for 1 cent and I think it is probably one of my new favourite books. In fact I have found a new 'superior' word to describe most of my relations. Here are a few of them with the definitions (I have not included the names of people in my family that the word reminds me of incase they beat me up!!!)

ONIOMANIA: An irresistable urge to buy things. Oniomaniacs often marry each other.

THERMANASTHESIA: Inability to feel heat and cold. The use of this term might be justifiably adapted to signify sensitivity to one or the other. Each of us knows someone who may be found rejoicing, coatless in the bracing early morning air of a late winter's day; and each of us knows someone who may be found huddled over the radiator, shivering on a balmy srping evening. Fate has decreed that the two invariably marry each other.

OLIGOPHAGOUS: Eating only a few particular kinds of food. This is the recommended word for use in those embarrassing situations when your hostess serves up for your four year old son a main course consisting largely of something which is anathema to him. As soo as you sense the alliaceous miasma, you say, apologetically: "I'm a little embarrassed to have to confess this, but I am afraid he has a oliphagous condition; I wonder if you have any dry biscuits - or perhaps something else a little, er, plainer?" Used with sufficient finesse, this technique can lead to his being presented with a plateful of sausage rolls.

THEOMANIA: A psychopathic condition in which the sufferer believes himself to be God.

STEATOPYGOUS: Fat- buttocked.

FOPDOODLE: An insignificant fool.

BELESPRIT: A finer spirit, an intellectually gifted person.

And my favourite definition which does not describe a person but is a rather common word with a rather uncommon problem concerning it's place in the English grammer system.

NONE: Not any. The interest here lies in the questions, much debated in the past of whether the word is singular or plaural. The argument used to be that since one was singular, and since none was derived from no one, then none should have a singular verb. In practice, of course it is used equally if not more freely with a plaural verb. In any event the argument is absurd, since the word refers neither to a single entity nor to multiple entities; it refers to a nullity, and hence calls for the development by a creative linguist of an entirely new conjugative inflection. Unfortunately 'creative linguist' is an oxymoron.

I love these words, in fact my sister bought me the complete set of 'The Superior Person's Guide to the English Language', also written by Peter Bowler, and I just love them. They remind me of Oscar Wilde's quote 'to be great is to be misunderstood'.