I love big words. I enjoy the fact that, in the English language, there is a one-word way to say almost anything. Have a justifiable fear of teenagers? You have ephebiphobia. Are you a 40 year old living with your mother and playing video games 22 hours a day? You're desultory. Need to soak those beans overnight before you cook them? Okay, let's macerate them. (Later, you can masticate them, but you shouldn't do the other rhyming M word to them at all.)
Sometimes my internal lexicon will burp up a random word into my consciousness, one that isn't immediately familiar to me. Yesterday's word was prehensile, meaning to be able to pick things up by wrapping around them. Humans have prehensile hands. Monkeys have prehensile tails. Elephants have prehensile noses. But does anything have a prehensile ear? I would love to see some creature capable of grasping things with an earlobe. If anyone knows of something that can, let me know.
Check out this link for an interesting read. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F60A1EF9345E10738DDDA80994DA405B8184F0D3
ReplyDeleteWow, Dave. How the heck did you find that article? It made for an interesting read. I never thought about humans having prehensile ears.
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