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This week we look at words of the senses, beginning with an insulting one. hircine – smelling like a goat Hircine can also mean just "like a goat", but it pertains primarily to smell. A word for "like a goat", without that smell connotation, is caprine.
– John Audubon, naturalist, quoted in Duff Hart-Davis, Audubon's Elephant hirsute – covered with abundant hair | ||
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treacly – cloyingly sweet
– Elizabeth Austin, Washington Monthly, March, 2003 | |||
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empyreumatic – smelling like burnt flesh alliaceous – smelling (or tasting) like garlic or onions
– (Colorado Springs) Gazette, Dec. 10, 2002 | |||
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The theme brings to mind a word with great potential to be misunderstood -- "vomeronasal." Extra credit for knowing the relation to "bromine." RJA | |||
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Well, I know that "bromine" comes from the Greek bromos, "stench". I suppose you could say that bromine gets up your vomeronasal area. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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toothsome – 1. temptingly tasty to the mouth 2. attractive, alluring (esp., sexually appealing to the eye)
– The Advocate, August 30, 2005 In other words, it makes the mouth water. Obviously suitable for figurative use. The word combines a Greek root (for 'saliva') with a Latin one. | |||
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"Sialalogue" recalls prior discussions of hybrid Greek/Latin compound words, like astronaut, automobile, carbohydrate, horticulture, television... RJA | |||
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Note carefully that the fourth letter of today's word is an m, not an n. formication – the feeling of ants or other insects crawling over one's skin [Latin formicare 'crawl like an ant'] I cannot give you a suitable quotation, but the following Ogden Nash poem may reinforce the connection between formi- and ants.
Through constant industry industrious. So what? Would you be calm and placid If you were full of formic acid? | |||
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How about this one from John Irving via a couple of minutes googling...
The Fourth Hand, John Irving "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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An old quotation of 1859 is that of Octave Landry's (1826-1865) celebrated report of ascending paralysis [ a type of inflammatory polyneuritis now often called Guillain-Barré syndrome] in a 43 year old paver in 1859 . After premonitory fever, malaise and pain in the limbs he developed : " weakness, formications in the tips of his fingers and toes”, and only in the third week developed paralysis of the limbs, fever, difficulty in breathing, speaking and chewing and swallowing. " The word formication is still in medical use, and the sensation of burning, tingling and crawling may be felt inside as well as on the skin. | |||
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Sorry to be lavatorial, BUT: The ant has got a painful rear: Burning, tingling its bottom sear, Formication comes to mind, Formic acid up his behind. | |||
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