Favourite Words

[Philellinas]

Our flagging Greek needs a boost: boustrophedon. Literally it means "ox turn" but is defined as ploughwise as in writing from right to left and left to right on alternate lines. Apparently some of the ancients were a dab hand at writing "backwards" as well as forwards. Ambidextrous writing? Certainly dextrous.

A friend of mine recently picked up an Inspector Morse novel by Colin Dexter entitled "Service of all the dead" in which the following sentence occurs:-
"She then walked boustrophedon along the pews on either side of the main aisle, replacing on their hooks whatever loose hassocks had been left on the floor, flicking the pew-ledges with a yellow duster, and at the same time collecting a few stray hymn-books and prayer-books".
Perhaps I should have said Dexterous writing. This may be an example of a hapax legomenon.

[Hugh Weldon]

It may be the only known example of the use of that word in an English novel. Unless somebody with an OED to hand can advise otherwise.

The sort of pretentiousness in diction that would make me want to defenestrate said book immediately. We can only blame Oxford I suppose.

[Adam Blake]

Accustomed as I am to floccinaucinihilipilification, the correct response to this is surely to shrug and ignore.

[Chris P]

Our flagging Greek needs a boost: boustrophedon. Literally it means "ox turn" but is defined as ploughwise as in writing from right to left and left to right on alternate lines. Apparently some of the ancients were a dab hand at writing "backwards" as well as forwards. Ambidextrous writing? Certainly dextrous.

thanks to this post I was able to read the following sentence today "a Burmese boustrophedon manuscript explaining in Pali the initiation rites of a Buddhist priest", and understand what it meant (although come to think of it I need to check I fully get the Pali language reference, which is also making me think of Hendrix's 'Pali Gap' instrumental, I wonder what he meant by the title)

[Chris P]

It seems that 'Pali Gap' may have been named posthumously, and referred to the Hawaiian word Pali meaning cliff, so 'Pali Gap' is a valley. Jimi's instrumental may have been lifted from his Hawaiian 'Rainbow Bridge' concert

the gap itself?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nu%E2%80%98uanu_Pali

[David Flower]

Bookkeeper

I'm wondering if there's another word that has 3 consecutive double letters

[DavidM]

There's a part of Sydney called Woolloomooloo, but I guess that being a name it doesn't really count;

[will vine]

And this probably doesn't count either, as it's a phrase, but, in the same vein - Incan iconography.

[David Flower]

i was trying to think of another word in english really.

Will, I don't think you've quite got the hang of this one !

[gary booth]

And an assistant to a bookkeeper is a 'subbookkeeper' (I'm reliably informed by my wife, who's a bookkeeper) which has 4 consecutive double letters. I thought it would be two words or hyphenated but evidently it's one?

[Janet M]

I wish I could actually say anything - but am on silent due to a recurring and particularly nasty bout of laryngitis. Hmmm, I've had some comments about being the 'perfect' wife!

[NormanD]

Omnishambles. This word is used virtually daily now by political commentators, largely to describe the general performance of the Con-Dem regime, and Camoron's in particular. The origin is down to "The Thick Of It", the tv comedy, and came from the inventively foul mouth of character Malcolm Tucker, the spinmeister from hell, who added: "You're like that coffee machine! From bean to cup, you fuck up!"

[Chris P]

Coruscating eg coruscating wit. I'd fallen into the trap, apparently along with many others, of thinking this was aggressive and sharp (the word maybe sounding that way, and also suggesting 'corrosive'). Turns out it means sparkling, or glittering.

edit (this later came to mind):

[DavidM]

Parse.

As in; "Do not automatically parse URLs."

Not; "Parse the salt."

[Ted]

While we are on the subject of Computer Science words - grok.

You can grok it from its context.