# Uncommon words



## cuchuflete

_Moderator note:  It's not often that a moderator has the opportunity or need to moderate his own thread, especially before writing a single word as a forero.  Exceptions may not prove rules, but they cast interesting shadows on them.  I wasn't sure what to use as a thread title.  If, after reading a bit, you wish to suggest a better title, please do so by using the little red triangle to report the thread.  Thanks. 

Ducking into a telephone booth, I will discard the mod cape and mod hat with silly tassels, and resume my identity as a forero.
_______________________________________________________


Background: _I was in town (population about 5000, not including summer people) yesterday, and stopped in the library's used book shop.  I couldn't resist the _Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions_, and was on my way to have a nice chat and swap pieces of green paper with pictures of dead presidents for it, when I espied this:  *The Superior Person's Book of Words*, Bowler, Peter; David R. Godine, Publisher, Boston 1985.  Needless to say, I am curious about what sorts of words my superiors use, and David R. Godine and I studied printing, book illustration, and kindred matters with Prof. Ray Nash, many decades ago.  Mr. Godine publishes very nicely designed and made books.  That the laughably low price was halved in honor of excess stock or Independence Day made it impossible to leave the book there.

Context:  As we have so often read in these pages, there ain't no stinkin' context.  In this particular case, that is true.  Another exception putting the rule in its penumbra?

I propose to cite brief entries from this glossary from time to time, if there is interest on your part.  I will do my share of the heavy lifting by attempting to verify that the words I place here actually exist.  Your job is to chuckle or chortle, and perhaps add the words to your already superior lexicon.

The definitions are a cross between what serious dictionaries have to offer, and the author's whimsy.  I have taken some liberties with the definitions, to make them less imposing.  

Enjoy. 

MOLIMINOUS ❧ _a._ Momentous; of great bulk or importance; laborious in the execution and of great consequence in the finished form.  As, for example, the present post. Generally applied to object or enterprises, but could be jocularly applied to your employer, your mother-in-law, your bank manager, panjandrum, timpeac, Matching Mole, _etc_., as appropriate.

Relatively boring Webster's Unabridged (1913) definition:
Mo`lim´i`nous
*a.**1.*Of great bulk or consequence; very important.source


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## cyberpedant

Sounds great! And perhaps an occasional quote from _The Devil's Dictionary_?


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## Loob

A wizard wheeze, cuchu - If you proceed with your plan, we will all become even more superior speakers than what we already is.

I fear, though, you will have a hard time matching 'moliminous'.

Yes, that _was_ a pune....


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## emma42

Nice one, Lord Cuchu.   Here's mine:

* Othergates*

Adv.  In another way
Adj.  Of another kind

[from "other" and genitive of "gate"].

Not as posh as moliminous, indeed, not as moliminous as moliminous, but it appeals to me because I can imagine it is still used in certain regions.  I would guess at Yorkshire or Lancashire (as I almost always do!).

Actually, it's in Websters.


*"Eee, mutha, you don't want to do it like that  - you want to do it othergates".

[Oh, mum, you shouldn't do it like that - you should do it in another way].

*


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## ewie

emma42 said:


> *"Eee, mutha, you don't want to do it like that - you want to do it othergates".*


Oi! I thought I told you to stop listening in to my phone-calls, M42.
In other words: never heard of it.

I still don't think you can beat that word which came up on WRF a few months ago and which I've now forgotten. Something like _volubilizing_ but not that. _Bloofishing_? No. It had a long _oo_ sound in it. Perhaps. Oh and it meant something like talking pompously.  Loob?


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## Loob

'Twas 'bloviate', ewiño.

Another thread started by our beloved cuchuflete.


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## ewie

Ah _that_ was it ~ I was wrong about the _oo_ but pretty close with _bloofish_. Well, sort of.
Nice pune, by the way, Loobzilla, though it _did_ take me 11½ minutes to get it.


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## emma42

Excellent word indeed.  M42!  Like it.  Does it mean that I go to Birmingham and have been covered by many drivers?  I do hope so. 

Bloviate.  How strange that I have not read it before.  And me, a Guardian reader.  Also, What's On TV? magazine.


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## AngelEyes

Loob said:


> 'Twas 'bloviate', ewiño.
> 
> Another thread started by our beloved cuchuflete.


 

Ooh...you guys, haven't you been exposed to our Bill O'Reilly over there??

nobloviatingt-shirt

Cuchu...perhaps you want to send Mr. O'Reilly your fluffy, wonderful, poufy, curious word: MOLIMINOUS 

I can sit at home and when he exposes your name to millions, I can say, "I know that guy! He's a genius among MODS." 

*AngelEyes*


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## Loob

Nope, Angel, who's Bill O'Reilly?


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## Matching Mole

I hope you don't meant to imply that I am personally "of great bulk". I assure you, I am far from crassulent.


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## cuchuflete

AngelEyes said:


> http://images.billoreilly.com/imagesproc/20931_H_SW350.jpg
> 
> Cuchu...perhaps you want to send Mr. O'Reilly your fluffy, wonderful, poufy, curious word: MOLIMINOUS
> 
> I can sit at home and when he exposes your name to millions, I can say, "I know that guy! He's a genius among MODS."
> 
> *AngelEyes*


Oh AngelEyes, who needs fame when you and I already know the secret of Petoskey Stones.   No, Yúster, not that variety.


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## Loob

Matching Mole said:


> I hope you don't meant to imply that I am personally "of great bulk". I assure you, I am far from crassulent.


 Perish the thought, MM.  Insofar as the term related to your good self, it clearly meant "of great importance" not "of great bulk".

Your humble & devoted servant

L


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## cuchuflete

Crapulent?  Indeed not.  


Surcharged  with liquor; sick from excessive indulgence in liquor; drunk;  given to excesses. —Webster's Unabridged, 1913


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## AngelEyes

cuchuflete said:


> Oh AngelEyes, who needs fame when you and I already know the secret of Petoskey Stones. No, Yúster, not that variety.


 

Oooh...the mystical Third Eyes found in the Petoskey Stones. 

Mood and magic...ancient lores that draw us in. Why, Cuchu, you're being downright New Age, oh Mysterious One.



I was just in Petoskey last summer. And it's just occurred to me...how do you know so much about Michigan, hmmm?

_Mod of many secrets._

*AngelEyes*


_Loob:_
_You can find out about about Mr. O'Reilly online. He has one of the most popular shows on Fox News. _


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## Dimcl

AngelEyes said:


> _Loob:_
> _You can find out about about Mr. O'Reilly online. He has one of the most popular shows on Fox News. _


 

And a bigger malapert you'll not find on the airwaves!


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## cuchuflete

AngelEyes said:


> I was just in Petosky last summer.


__
Hmmm...I have never been there, but I have been here.



> _Loo__b:_
> _. He has one of the most popular shows on Fox News. _


_
Fox News~Faux Snooze?  I wonder how they pronounce that in RP._


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## ewie

AngelEyes said:


> Cuchu...perhaps you want to send Mr. O'Reilly your fluffy, wonderful, *poufy*, curious word


Erm?
Are you calling Cuchie's word _gay_, Angel_Eyes _... ?
Seriously though eek, I like _moliminous_ because it portmantofies _mole, subliminal, voluminous_ and (if you stand well back and squint) French _minous_ ('pussy-cats').  I'll be back later with a 'brilliant pune' which combines all the above elephants.


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## emma42

How malapert.  Lord Cuchu is not poufy.  Very occasionally fluffy.


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## cuchuflete

Golly whiz!  Can't you BE speakers spell phluphy properly?

Have to run into the village in a minute (population about 40, including summer people, not including livestock, who may be mistaken for summer people at times...but that would be off-topic, no?)  Before I go, here's another randomly selected Superior Person's Word.

For all you lovers of rhubarb...

GREGORY-POWDER ❧ _n._ A laxative powder, containing rhubarb, magnesium, and ginger, invented by a Scottish doctor named Gregory, who died in 1822, which should surprise no one.  "Mmmm," you murmur appreciatively as you try the herbal powder your hostess has just sprinkled on your spaghetti Bolognese, "it's not unlike gregory-powder, isn't it?"  Without noticing your triple negative, she agrees happily.


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## emma42

I fear that some metaphorical Gregory Powder has been ingested by certain contributors to this thread.  Ooh, 'scuse!  Need to rush to the loo.


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## Vanda

Wizard Cuchu, great idea! I am posting because I want to stay tunned to the words to come. Funny that once I bought a dictionary of '1000 you have to know in English' - sort of this name. End of the story? Most of those 1000 words are from Latin words (like this moliminous one) and so they weren't unkown to me. Now, to be fair, I have just discovered how the Portuguese word translates into English -  moliminous-  had no idea. So it works the other way around. Thank you very much!

My contribution is the word *adulate* that I expect at least one person doesn't know it: To praise or admire excessively; fawn on.


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## sdgraham

My late grandmother was a little strange (some might say that's where I get it) and one of her quirks was to use words that nobody else around her used - or often, even understood..

She was an avid reader of Readers Digest's "It Pays to Increase your Word Power" feature.

For example: *countenance - the human face (among other meanings)
*
She never said "face." That would have been beneath her.


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## emma42

Your grandmother sounds brilliant.  I would countenance any of her ideas.


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## Brioche

Vanda said:


> My contribution is the word *adulate* that I expect at least one person doesn't know it: To praise or admire excessively; fawn on.



The verb may not be in common use, but the noun *adulation* certainly is.

Here's a quote from to-day, 4th July 2008, from a Canadian source:

_That particular bout of adulation may have been over the top, but it certainly isn't a rarity._


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## AngelEyes

Maybe it's my childhood exposure to Catholic saints, but I've always been drawn to the word *effluvia*.  
Especially in connection to the *luminous* *effluvia* of the holy saints or highly evolved souls.

This word (effluvium) is very often associated with unpleasant fumes and vapors, but I never think of it that way. I even like the way it rolls off my tongue. I wonder if people who just love words actually do choose favorites for how they feel when they say them?

_If it's just me, forget I brought this up...I'm already considered weird._

*AngelEyes*


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## Matching Mole

I'm surprised that the superior person would need the name of an aperient. I would have thought their bowels to be as regular as their vowels; or they would at least tend to the hypenemious rather than the eccoprotic.


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## Loob

O gelastic Mole! Your post made me cachinnate


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## cuchuflete

Loob said:


> O gelastic Mole!



Was that intended to be O*h*, gelastic Mole!  If so, and with the presumed concurrence of a person who has lately been sprinkling apostrophes hither and yon, willy-nilly, and in profusion, it should be our Irish friend O'gelastic.


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## emma42

That is _execrable_, cuchuflete.  Not that uncommon, but a favourite.


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## cuchuflete

I have certainly never claimed to be 'that uncommon'.


Are we all sufficiently lexiphanic now?


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## Kevin Beach

Try:

Incorporeal hereditaments
Rights to land, such as easements and covenants, which can be transferred and sued for, but have no physical being.

Ingress and egress
Entry and exit

Contiguous
Physically adjoining; usually applied to pieces of land

Eleemosynary
Charitable, particularly the relief of poverty.

Untimeous
Late, as in after the appointed time.


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## Loob

cuchuflete said:


> Are we all sufficiently lexiphanic now?


Now you're just being ludibrious, you sabermetrician!


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## sdgraham

Kevin Beach said:


> Contiguous
> Physically adjoining; usually applied to pieces of land



Contiguous isn't uncommon here in the U.S. where we have 48 contiguous states.

Google returns 345 million hits for that expression.

I do not suggest that the post was egregious, however.


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## emma42

Not uncommon here either, really.  I do like "untimeous", though.


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## gasman

> Are we all sufficiently lexiphanic now?



I think I am getting "lexiphobic".


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## FranParis

I, on the other hand, love *sesquipedalian* words..


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## sdgraham

How about extant? _still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost;_

For example: Is Sheepscott (or is it Sheepscot?) Village extant?


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## AngelEyes

emma42 said:


> That is _execrable_, cuchuflete. Not that uncommon, but a favourite.


 

Emma,

Why is this a particular favorite?

It sounds like something you'd do after eating a bad burrito. 

_Of course, my favorite - effluvium/a - sounds like something you'd do just before you had to confront the execrable..._

*AngelEyes*


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## emma42

It's just such a marvellous adjective to use when really disgusted.  You can make a sort of vomiting sound with the first syllable.


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## AngelEyes

emma42 said:


> It's just such a marvellous adjective to use when really disgusted. You can make a sort of vomiting sound with the first syllable.


 


Yes...very good point.

And, best of all, a lot of people don't exactly know how to take it!

When I use mine, they're not sure whether to ignore me or leave the room.



*AngelEyes*


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## emma42

Or take some Gregory Powders!


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## cuchuflete

sdgraham said:


> How about extant? _still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost;_
> 
> For example: Is Sheepscott (or is it Sheepscot?) Village extant?



If it is not extent, then I am in another dimension of time and space.  I live in Sheepscott Village (there is a minor argument about the final "t".) I swam in the Sheepscot River (no final "t" for reasons unknown) yesterday, and as the tide is in, I'm heading back there in a few minutes, so my Chesapeake Bay Retriever and I can cool off, and he can try to save me from the greenheads (flies).  The village seems to have been embalmed in a block of clear but permeable epoxy in about 1830.  Quiet, underpopulated, friendly, peaceful.  Many of the local animals, thanks to the WordReference influence carried by visitors from many countries, are now multilingual. 
The tourists do formicate here in July and August, as if they were repullulating.


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## emma42

"Ext*a*nt", Cuchuflete.


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## Loob

Eeeh - I do like _formicate _and _repullulating._ 

They are both promptive of much pensitation, cuchu.

Please keep going with the superior words!


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## emma42

I like those, Loob.  Also, ullulate and purl.


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## FranParis

In such strange places, I even saw _malinger forinsecal_ beings using _forficate_ tools..


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## Loob

FranParis said:


> In such strange places, I even saw _malinger forinsecal_ beings using _forficate_ tools..


You've lost me now, FranParis.

I feel so wretched that someone's going to have to undumpish me.


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## sdgraham

Loob said:


> You've lost me now, FranParis.
> 
> I feel so wretched that someone's going to have to undumpish me.


 
It's that perspicacity


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## panjandrum

It's funny how such fascinating filaments can be so anguillous.
I've been in and out of the forum for the past couple of days and not once did I find trace of this moliminous thread, until now.
My own personal favourite is *adumbrate*.  You'll find several instances of its use in these forums - by me - as an example of rarely used word.  I did once hear it used naturally.


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## FranParis

So your use of adumbrate was _advenient,_ I'd faintly suggest_.._


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## emma42

Loob said:


> You've lost me now, FranParis.
> 
> I feel so wretched that someone's going to have to *undumpish* me.



Back to the Gregory Powders?


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## ewie

emma42 said:


> Back to the Gregory Powders?


I am _very quietly_ rolling on the floor cachinnating my bahookie off.


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## emma42

All you people all sitting there with your copies of the OED Complete?  I don't know any of these wordings.

 Ewie, make sure you pick it up after it's fallen off.  We don't want loads of old bahookies strewn all over the place.


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## Loob

O yes, "bahookie" is in the OED.

Trust ewiño to know all the _rude_ bits.


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## ewie

It's also in *THIS THREAD*, last post (by se16teddy, no less). And Bibboilapet has used it too.


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## emma42

Miss!  Miss!  He started it, Miss!


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## toshev

emma42 said:


> Or take some Gregory Powders!


 

Failing that, some Epsom Salts might do the trick in curing the otherwise abstemious who've been cozened into the sampling the execrable.


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## emma42

What, Aussie cuisine?  (ducks to avoid wrath of iracund antipodeans)*

*And that's from a Brit.  Over-boiled cabbage, anyone?


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## toshev

emma42 said:


> What, Aussie cuisine? (ducks to avoid wrath of iracund antipodeans)*
> 
> *And that's from a Brit. Over-boiled cabbage, anyone?


 

Laugh if you will, but artless antediluvians have a saying: better to excogitate than expostulate should one not wish to execrate.


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## lablady

I like threads like this one. It reminds me that I don't have as large a vocabulary as I thought (I've had to look up at least half of the words you have all used with such ease)  It's also reminiscent of one of my earliest favorite threads.

I have a calendar of "Forgotten English" that gives a new-to-me but antiquated word every day. My all-time favorite has been "fish-whole" which was defined as being in perfect health. Somehow, I've never thought that being as healthy as a fish was one of my goals.  Unfortunately, the calendar didn't give a source for its information other than a date sometime in the 1600s and I have been unable to find the word anywhere else. Nevertheless, it's been a fun addition to my vocabulary.

Everyone, please keep adding all the interesting words to the posts. My dictionary hasn't gotten this much exercise in years.


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## Loob

What a supermundane thread, Laura!

♫I'm a bellibone, tra-la♫






Did you think we posters weren't looking up half of those words too?


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## FranParis

You're self-addressing your blandiloquence now?


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## Matching Mole

Loob said:


> What a supermundane thread, Laura!


I would be careful with "supermundane", Loob. Those less superior persons, ignorant of its true meaning, might accuse you of floccinaucinihilipilification.

(Well, somebody had to come out with it. I have volunteered to take the heat.)


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## Loob

O Mole (do I mean O'Mole?)! 

Surely not - unless they were accusing me of hyphenic hyphæresis


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## xqby

Matching Mole said:


> Those less superior persons, ignorant of its true meaning, might accuse you of floccinaucinihilipilification.


 
Certain jejune persons might in turn floccinauicinihilipilificate their word choice, claiming that a word with four synonymous prefixes verges on prolixity. Regardless, its use in educated company is sure to make one a cynosure.


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## Dimcl

This thread is going to turn us all into abderians.  I will admit, however, that the [FONT=CMBX12~29]adoxography is wonderful.  Let's just hope that we can keep it going without it becoming exsufflicating.[FONT=CMBX12~29]
[/FONT][/FONT]


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## sdgraham

_Given the verisimilitudinous posts. I think we all shall well continue._


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## Gwan

I'm not sure all these words are perfectly cromulent


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## Harry Batt

Moliminous, huh? It smelled like Shakespeare to me. He who coined Madcap and Unmitigated must have had a hand or a pen in Moliminous. Since it was posted as the thread, I've searched my Shakespearian sources for moliminous without success. Shakespearian sources are _Coined by Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Words, Shakespeare's Language and Dictionary of Shakespeare. When we get to Shakespeare's Deracinate, I'll be prepared. _


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## emma42

This thread is just not fair on people who have not got an ENORMOUS dictionary.  I demand a dictionary fund for less fortunate forer@s.

Please send cheques/checks to:  Emma42, Third Garage on the Left, Just Behind the Grocer's, Sausage Lane, England.

I promise I won't spend any of it on shoes.


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