Weird but Wonderful

agamous [ag-uh-mus] an adjective meaning 'unmarried'. Useful for single people with nagging relatives. "I'm happy being agamous, really, Aunt Mabel" will have them convinced of your alternative lifestyle (not that there's anything wrong with that) and with any luck head off further inquiry. Just hope that a more motivated and worried relative doesn't skip down in the dictionary to a further meaning: 'without distinguishable sexual organs'. This much more disturbing meaning is used mostly about plants – cryptogamous is the word more commonly used. Agamous comes from a Greek word of the same meaning.

cosmothetic [kahz-moh-thet-ik] an adjective meaning 'something that assumes there is an external world'. It is used about a theory of perception that posits the existence of an external world but denies that we have any evidence of it or knowledge about it. Perhaps useful for describing such statements such as "I know there are people who put mayonnaise on hot dogs, but I've never met one myself." From Greek words meaning 'world' plus 'positing'.

dactylonomy [dack-tuh-lah-nuh-mee] the science of counting on your fingers. A nice saving term for people who are bad at maths. "I'm a dactylonomist, actually. It's very difficult to be a good one." Chisanbop is a Korean method of using the fingers as an abacus; on the left hand each finger is counted as ten and the thumb as fifty and on the right hand the thumb is five and the fingers each one. So counting 22 would involve pressing down the first two fingers on the left hand and the first two of the right; adding the thumb of the left and the remaining two fingers of the right add 52; then you can read the total, 74, from your pressed-down fingers. Chisanbop comes from Korean words meaning 'finger counting method'.

epagomenic [ep-uh-gah-muh-nick] days left off the calendar (before calendar reform). Also, gods worshipped on those days. This would be a lovely word to use for holidays that are personal but not public; birthdays, anniversaries, mental health days, and the like. "I need next Tuesday off, it's an epagomenic day."

nabocklish [na-bock-lish] an incredibly useful Irish interjection meaning "Never mind! Leave that alone!" Literally meaning 'don't meddle with it'.

nudiustertian [n(y)oo-dee-uh-stur-shun] an obsolete and rare (yet incredibly useful) word meaning 'of the day before yesterday'. Used by extension also to mean 'the very newest'. From a Latin phrase meaning 'three days earlier'.

quadragenarian [kwah-druh-djuh-nair-ee-un] someone who is forty years old. One such person is described as "a stalwart well-oiled quadragenarian" in a citation from 1892. The adjective is quadragenarious, which is used in the 1895 citation "One of these plumply mellow quadrigenarious bodies." scabilonian [skab-uh-loh-nee-un] the OED glosses this word as 'a contemptuous term for some kind of garment'.

So, while you probably won't have an opportunity any time soon to use racemation 'the gleaning of grapes,' Satanophany 'a visible manifestation of Satan,' or nittiness 'the condition of being full of small air bubbles,' you could more than possibly use the words above to fend off nosy relatives, make excuses for mathematical incompetence, or take an unexpected day off. Which may not be all that weird, but is certainly wonderful.

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