Etymologically speaking...

Listen to this, oleaginous. (!) Isn’t that just a wonderful word? It means:

1. Of or relating to oil.
2 Falsely or smugly earnest; unctuous: oleaginous flattery.

What a great word. I love the way it sounds.

Here’s another word or should I say phrase, petit dejeuner, breakfast… It’s so mellifluous, it just rolls off the tongue. Isn’t that a nifty way to say “breakfast?”

And here’s another interesting word: adamantine.

1. Made of or resembling adamant.
2. Having the hardness or luster of a diamond.
3. Unyielding; inflexible: “If there is one dominant trait that emerges from this account, it is adamantine willpower”(Eugene Linden).

Grandiloquent means forceful, boastful or bombastic (which isn’t such a bad word either).

How about fasicles for a swell word?

1. A small bundle.
2. One of the parts of a book published in separate sections.

3. A bundle or cluster of stems, flowers, or leaves.

Opprobrium means:

1. Disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct; ignominy.
2. Scornful reproach or contempt: a term of opprobrium.
3. A cause of shame or disgrace.

Exegesis is a critical explanation or analysis, especially of a text.

Verisimilitude means “the quality of appearing to be true or real or something that has the appearance of being true or real.

And three more words: mendicant (a beggar), calumny (a false statement maliciously made to injure another's reputation), and conflates (to bring together; meld or fuse…or to combine into one whole).

These terrific words were all in a book I read recently, Brimstone, by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Yes, it was a pretty good book and I would recommend it as an entertaining read, but I’m not going to review it here. I just wanted to share some interesting words (and their definitions in case you’re unfamiliar with them) with you. They were all in that tome, which provided an enjoyable reading time for me.

So WHY am I only hearing the “F” word anymore? It’s “F” this, and “F” that, “F’n” and “F’ed” and… Why is that lousy, crummy, mean and disrepectful word used in such abundance in people’s speech, in books, in movies and everywhere else, to such neglect of all the wondrous, interesting and diverse verbiage that’s available? I hate the “F” word! It makes me mad. In fact it often enrages me. To put it simply, it puts me in a “bad space.” It’s an ugly, demeaning and thoroughly crude word. Whatever happened to creativity? What ever happened to respect? Whatever happened to intellect?

Sigh.....