~ Wondrous Words Wednesday ~

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bermudaonion's Weblog where we share words that we’ve encountered in our reading. Feel free to join in the fun (please do!) Be sure to leave a link to your post over at Bermudaonion's Weblog.


The words below are from Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant:


" Besides, Greenglass would rather hear in advance if he made any errors since the attendees at such lectures, despite their adherence to precepts of piety ostensibly precluding nasty ad hominems, were notoriously merciless with their criticism."


1. Ad hominem
: appealing to one's prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one's intellect or reason.
: attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument.


“You didn't deny anyone who wanted to learn, and you also didn't pay attention to the Gentiles' rules, like the city building inspector' occupancy limits, the concern of non-Jewish bureaucrats who understood nothing about the inviolable primacy of studying holy texts.”


2. Inviolable
: Never to be broken, infringed, or dishonored
: secure from assault or trespass; unassailable




The following word comes from The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen


" The whole family had been absurdly symbiotic, John teaching Jess how to chop wood; Ricky teaching her ho to paddle stern; Jess teaching them card games they'd never heard of - Russian Bank, Liverpool, Beggar My Neighbor - and strumming her guitar, and baking John's birthday cake in the propane gas oven, which Ricky showed her how to use."


3. Symbiotic
: a close and usually obligatory association of two organisms of different species that live together, often to their mutual benefit
: a similar relationship between interdependent persons or groups; a cooperative relationship




These next few words come from Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington


**In the book 8-year old Ellie decides to read her father's leather-bound dictionary from college, one of his favorite books, while he's away with the National Guard. She uses her favorite words on her family. Some of them are great, funny words so I thought I'd share a few:


4. Sesquipedalian - having many syllables; given to using long words.
5. Hypergelast - Someone who laughs excessively; someone who can't stop laughing
6. Cataglottism - Kissing with the tongue
7. Bibliobibuli - a mixture of Greek and Latin, loosely translated it means "drunk on books":


"bibliobibuli" was a term coined in 1957 by H. L. Mencken who said:


"There are people who read too much: the bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing."
(from the Urban Dictionary)