Twenty six gems from
Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary
of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words

by Josefa Heifetz Byrne

Agroof: Flat on one's face.

Bandoline: Smelly hair goo made from boiled quince pips.

Cisvestitism: Wearing weird or inappropriate clothes.

Dasypygal: Having hairy buttocks.

Epicaricacy: Taking pleasure in others' misfortune.

Funkify: To retreat fearfully.

Gynotikolobomassophile: One who likes to nibble on a woman's earlobe.

Hadeharia: Constant use of the word hell.

Ichthyomancy: Fortunetelling with fish offal.

Jargogle: To befudddle; mess up.

Kitty-benders: Thin ice; running on thin ice.

Lalochezia: Talking dirty to relieve tension.

Merkin: A pubic wig; a mop for swabbing cannons.

Nimptopsical: Drunk (listed together with 227 other synonyms by Benjamin Franklin, who would have occasion to know)

Owling: The act of smuggling wool or sheep.

Pickelhaube: The Prussian spiked helmet.

Qualtagh: The first person seen after leaving the house.

Recumbentibus: A knockdown blow.

Sneckdraw: A sly person.

Thwertnick: Entertaining a sheriff for three nights.

Uxorious: Doting on a wife.

Valgus: Bowlegged or knock-kneed.

Wamble: To feel nauseous.

Xenobombulate: To malinger (slang).

Yeuling: Walking around fruit trees praying for a good crop.

Zenzizenzizenzic: The eighth power of a number.

For all Mrs. Byrne's fine efforts, however, I must admit that English isn't much of a language for swearing. When I studied Ancient Greek I was delighted to discover a single word -- Rhaphanidosthai! -- which translates roughly as "Be thou thrust up the fundament with a radish for adultery." To which a friend, who was mastering Egyptian hieroglyphics, could brightly retort xeauik eref em-nemmet: Your procreative organ is next upon the sacrifical altar.

Ancient Greek offered rather fine scurrilities (even my Victorian lexicon contained marvels such as krommu-oxu-regmia, a belch of onions and vinegar), but much is lost in a dead language. Aristophanes himself is hard put to match the pungency of the current New Mexican imprecation: Malia y quien te avotono -- Damn whoever buttoned you! And Maledicta, the International Journal of Verbal Aggression, lists several dozen Italian epithets that confound English entirely, such as the stunning Dio scapa da lett in bicicletta! (God escaped from bed by bicycle!)

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