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Tag Archives: words

Word of the day

From Best of Wikipedia comes a magnificent word for the impression that one’s mobile phone is ringing when in fact it isn’t: fauxcellarm.

Smoaking kills

Isaac Newton’s second cousin John Newton apparently died “by a tobacco-pipe breaking in his throat, in the act of smoaking, from a fall in the street, occasioned by ebriety.” (From Fara –which I don’t recommend, but it has its moments– pg 203.) Incidentally, how odd that “ebriety” and “inebriety” mean almost the same thing, if [...]

A slow day for lexicography

My diss is printed1 and I’d like to post photos of the pyramid of boxes, and the snazzy cover … but my camera has run out of batteries and won’t release said pics from its robotic claws. In the meantime, then, a bizarre piece of lexicography:2 the second citation for “tarantula” in Dr Johnson’s Dictionary. [...]