Once I lowered my expectations from Senior Vice President to dogsbody I finally found a job opportunity.
2. pyogenic — pus-producing
As if an antibiotic-resistant staph infection was not enough of a worry, now we learned that Larry was also in the throes of pyogenic meningitis.
3. bumbailiff — low-rank bailiff
He held the job of bumbailiff as a sinecure and was quite surprised Harry expected him to serve the writ.
4. elenchus — Socratic method of argument by cross-examination; refutation of syllogism by another syllogism
Epicurus famously turned the Eleatic elenchus on its head, arguing from the proofs of ever-present motion that a void was a necessary complement, thus positing null space as a requirement for his atoms to move through.
5. ween — to think, believe, conjecture
The wounds are much too large for even a large wolf, as I ween, but seem to indicate some monstrous beast is at work.
6. hale — to draw, pull
If he will not do the honorable thing I shall demand the sheriff hale him to the Justice of the Peace to make an honest woman of my daughter.
7. blear — dim from tears or inflammation
She seemed unshaken by the terrible news, as if one more travesty no longer had power to hurt her, and so she sat with her shoulders hunched and eyes blear from either hunger or past tears.
8. nosocomial — acquired because of hospitalization
Disgustingly, the most common nosocomial infection in the United States is that of the urinary tract.
9. sublunary — worldly, earthly, terrestrial
No longer will I bother with sublunary things, for I am now concerned only with heaven and the music of the spheres.
10. obstupefy — to stupefy, esp. mentally
It was not the fact that the poodle talked in plain English that left me obstupefied, but my realization that the small dog was wearing a tiny NASCAR jacket featuring a Taco Bell logo.
Doomsday: The End of the World–A View Through Time by Russell Chandler is a meandering, badly held together set of essays about human ideas and experiences with the end of all things. The book is strongest when it dives into modern Christian apocalyptic thought and history. It is weakest when it surveys all aspects of End of the World ideas in the human record, which unfortunately is what this book purports to do.
Until I reached Chapter 18 I fully intended to sell, donate, or otherwise dispose of this book in an appropriate manner. It is not a “bad” book per se, just rather bland and imprecise, as might be expected from a Christian author residing in Solvang, California. There are better books about the End of the World out there, and Russell Chandler quotes and cites many of those better books in his survey course on eschatology which he titles twice as Doomsday: The End of the World–A View Through Time. The inability to choose between “doomsday” or the “end of the world” is symptomatic of this inoffensive volume collecting tertiary research gleaned from the betters mentioned just above. The author proves unable to choose between insights into modern Christian views of Judgement Day (his strong suit), or an overview of Last Days fears, thoughts, and experiences.
I pulled this book from my shelves as part of my ongoing ‘read and release’ program, wherein I am winnowing my books by reading them and then letting go of those books I do not need. Chandler’s book seemed to be just such a volume as I plodded through the early disjoint chapters through which one could easily discern the outline the author had probably typed out in WordPerfect as he sat down to wrangle his disparate material into a single book. The first two-thirds of the book reads much like most grade school book reports: topic sentence, paragraph about topic sentence, and then this happened, and then this other thing. Done. Next topic. He purports to frame his book by referencing the Roman god Janus (he is careful to mention that Janus is a “mythological” Roman god, in case you were wondering), who, Chandler says, as “the patron of beginnings and endings, is a perfect symbol for this endeavor”, i.e., his book, “a hybrid book, a combination of history and futurology.” But the book is less hybrid and more a flawed combination of mismatched parts, oil and water in the hands of the workmanlike religion editor for the Los Angeles Times.
During the current era of the “big-bangers,” the idea of cyclic cosmology has attracted some stellar proponents.
I see what you did there…
The Janus frame is used to transition from reflections on historical catastrophes and doomsayers to contemplation of modern scientific disasters and ends which may come to pass, and then is left to go hang for pretty much the rest of the book. What truly irks me about this frame is not the fact that it is a jerry-rigged bailing wire structure used to tie together his not-quite-random chapters, but that Chandler misses or is ignorant of the most salient fact about the (mythological) Roman god Janus: In ancient Rome his temple’s doors were open during wartime and closed (quite infrequently) in times of peace.* This startling ignorance is matched by his uncritical view of most of the non-Biblical, non-Christian content he reviews in his book. Along the way he seems to reveal a more mercenary vision of truth than his Christian ideals might support.
That could take nearly forever, however—about 1033 years. That’s ten billion plus another twenty-three zeros.
No. No it’s not. That’s not right. Not right at all. What if anything does that last sentence even mean?
Mr. Chandler is credulous and also easily impressed by strong book sales. For example, though he is quite strident against the inanities and the superstitious nonsense of the New Age (Chandler even wrote a book about it, which he cites in his endnotes), the author fawns almost shamelessly over one of history’s all-time great conmen (present company excluded, of course): Nostradamus. An entire chapter is devoted to — ahem — spent on the Jeanne Dixon of Catherine de Medici’s reign. After reporting the most credulous accounts from true believers and popularizers seeking to sell books, Chandler gives a fair and balanced two paragraphs to the debunker James Randi, who tore apart the perhaps purposely abstruse quatrains of Nostradamus in a 199o book. The second paragraph, however, only points out that “bookstores couldn’t keep Nostradamus books in stock; Randi’s languished on the shelves.” Chandler then quotes an apologist for the vague and confusing language of Nostradamus, who then pleads for a core of accurate predictions that “no one has been able ‘to dismiss out of hand'” — this only three paragraphs (comprising five sentences) after Randi was quoted doing just that.
In essence, scoffs Randi, just say Nostradamus—a takeoff on the line urging youth to “just say no” to drugs.
Explaining jokes is my forte, too
The book is overly cited, though one cannot accuse it of hiding behind footnotes, since it hides all the notes themselves at the end like so many other publications fearing to turn off readers with the evidence of actual research. The works cited are — for the most part — tertiary studies of the doomsday thesis, which Chandler has collated into his book in hopes of cashing in on the fin de siècle interest of the time (the book was published in 1993). Those cited works are almost always better written, though you’ll have to hunt and peck to find them, as Chandler makes up for copious endnotes by failing to provide the reader with either a bibliography or an index. The endnotes themselves show how the author skimmed his own survey sourcebooks to craft his own, for turning to the endnotes often reveals that that telling quote from original sources is merely cribbed, excuse me, “quoted in”, another’s work. Chandler even feels the need to add an endnote citation for T.S. Eliot’s classic line “not with a bang but with a whimper”, perhaps meaning that the Los Angeles Times religion editor only stumbled upon the poetry in “21. Quoted in [Daniel] Cohen, Waiting for the Apocalypse, 183.”†
I’m reporting on only a few from my Apocalypzoid File here. I’m saving my extensive—and growing—collection of personal predictions from sign-hoisting apostles of future fright for another book I want to write someday. That is, if—or as long as—their predictions are wrong.
They were, but he didn’t
On the other hand, Russell Chandler was writing before the Internet made it easy to garner information from Wikipedia and thousands of other flower-like blooms of information now readily available at our finger tips at the mere cost of incessant advertising and the loss of byte-sized nibbles from our souls. On the other other hand, as a reasonably well-read Christian writing about religion news, one assumes that Chandler would own several editions of the Bible, making it surprising that his actual Bible citations reference a slumgullion stew of different versions, including the New American Standard Bible, the Revised Standard Version, and the New English Bible — though he prefaces his work with the boilerplate assertion that, unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotes in his book are from the New International Version. (Most quotes seem to be from the King James Version, for what it’s worth.)
He is at his best when writing about what he knows most about,‡ the history of and bases for modern Christian apocalyptic thought. In particular, Chandler’s chapter on John Nelson Darby and his eschatological heirs is one of a few that saved this book from my donation pile; the history of Dispensationalism is fascinating to me as a son of the Bible Belt. And in eight pages in his chapter on fundamentalist End of the World views, he very clearly lays out the so-called ‘thinking’ behind talk of the Rapture and the Tribulation, as well as the differences between various millenarian Christian sects. Anyone who is curious to uncover from just where those strange prophecies of a final battle in the Middle East arose will find the explication with accompanying list of relevant Bible verses to be invaluable.
These “signs” are more “perceived” than “believed,” more empirical than prophetical. We don’t have to read them back into the words of the biblical prophets to know that ours is a different era; these times cannot be confused with prior times.
But we must not retreat into escapism. It’s irresponsible to sit back, believing that doomsday is right around the corner, so come hell and high water: Let the bad times roll. We’ll all be rescued before the End really comes.
If you are confused, check your watch … or your iPhone
Straight Outta Solvang
I’m sure Mr. Chandler is a nice guy. He certainly comes across as one in his writing. He appeals for respect for one another amid strident calls for schism and divisiveness. His language is calm and well-mannered — or, to put it another way, bland. Thus it is a surprise when he describes the conservative preacher Tim LaHaye§ as “short of stature but long on invective”, and this reader found himself searching for the endnote that seems to accompany every other creative turn of phrase.
Year 2000 is drawing Christian mission groups like particles of steel to a megamagnet.
Like sands through the megahourglass, so are the days of our lives
Of course, we also have to remember that this book and author were a product of their times. The work is written in response to a demand caused by the (then) upcoming chronometrical rollover to 2000 A.D. It may be hard for us living on the gristle of the 21st Century to recall or realize just how much fascination still existed in human hearts for the promise and terror of the upcoming Millennium. The New Age was no longer quite new, being another one of those poorly parented children of the 70s, but was still turning its stoned attention weakly to the next bright shiny thing (something it was to continue doing after the year 2000 until the Mayan end of the world failed to materialize in 2012, instead gifting humanity with yet another mediocre John Cusack movie).
as God’s hand has gradually disappeared from the aimless handwriting of secular historians, the prophecy writers have leaped into the gap.
Most of the aimless handwriting now done on fancy word processors, natch
But Chandler’s ultimate failure is that he draws no conclusions from his material. He does conclude his book, having forgotten almost entirely his conceit about the Roman god Janus, with a personal statement of belief about the End of Days. His belief, however, like many other beliefs in our current age, seems entirely unaffected by the wide-ranging material he has just researched. He has taken a Cook’s tour of the end of time, dragging us along with him, but we end the trip with only a few snapshots and postcards, and very little learning. Look elsewhere if you wish to learn about topics such as the roots of apocalyptic thought (try Norman Cohn’s masterful Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come or Paul D. Hanson’s The Dawn of Apocalyptic), or what happens in a social group on the day after doomsday (the classic study is When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, et. al.), or just why humans seem innately drawn to predicting the future (even the old popular account Science, Prophecy and Prediction by Richard Lewinsohn is superior, which may be why Chandler cites it frequently).
Admittedly, it’s hard to discern the meaning of Bible prophecy. From the mainline and liberal perspective, that’s a built-in “given.” And that in itself may be a prime reason why eschatology receives little attention in most mainline circles.
Written when “liberal” was not a dirty word, and could be used publicly to describe (as here) Christian churches
All societies have had their seers, prophets, and prognosticators. We call ours pundits, pollsters, or economists. But to recognize this truism is to overlook the salient fact about prophecy, which is that prophecy (like apocalypse itself) is a literary construct — nothing more, nothing less. Only in literature can all the elements of prophecy be fulfilled. When a wise woman or a native shaman or a “magic black man” makes a prediction, it is only in literature that things can come to pass just as predicted. All other prediction seems to involve shoving round pegs into the square holes left by the past. If you recall that most prophecies were written after the events they predict, you will know a great secret.
The times we live in at this moment, though plagued by powerful gadflies who seek to create the Armageddon they (perhaps) fervently believe in, seem less inspired by Nebuchadnezzar’s magic four-layer statue and more by Genesis 11. Anyone who spends any amount of time reading social media or news not tailored specifically to his or her own political beliefs will recognize that our language has been confounded, and that we do not understand one another’s speech. One hopes that our Balkanization of speech will slow before it becomes entirely impossible to communicate, but only time will tell.
“now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
Genesis 11:6-7 [KJV] (some may see the hand of Putin rather than the jealous Yahwist God)
* I know that the building in Rome is supposedly “not a temple” or “not a normal temple”. Whatever, Wikipedia.
† Even his first mention of the Daniel Cohen book is fraught with this problem, as the first citation of Waiting for the Apocalypse notes that the quote Chandler uses is “cited in” some random article from the now-defunct Omni magazine. Which is strange, as it seems clear that Chandler had the Cohen book when he was writing his own.
‡ Another insight from The Book of Duh.
§ Tim LaHaye is now best known as the co-author of the successful Left Behind series of during-the-Apocalypse Christian thrillers, featuring the action-packed adventures of the Tribulation Force. He only receives a single paragraph in Chandler’s book, as LaHaye was still a few years away from discovering his coauthor in the sprawling empire that the Left Behind series and spin-offs have become.
1. gnome — general maxim, aphorism, terse saying with a moral
Since, like Polonius in Hamlet, his speech seems to consist primarily of gnomes and clichés, I doubt he would be able to follow this play’s sustained allegory.
2. shirtwaist — tailored blouse for women
The old-fashioned establishment did not allow Jane to dine in her dress, but insisted she wear a shirtwaist and skirt.
3. calash — light carriage seating two or four persons. In Canada, a two-wheeled vehicle with a single seat for two, and space for the driver to sit on the splashboard.
“Never mind your carriage, sir, as my man stands ready with the calash just outside.”
4. oliguria — scanty production of urine
While oliguria may be caused merely by insufficient fluid intake, it may also be a symptom of renal failure or other serious urinary tract issues.
5. minster — church of a monastery; also gen. any large church
The crypt containing the abbot’s bones was directly beneath the chancel of the minster, but there was no entrance from within the church itself.
6. burin — engraving tool for use on metal
Of course, many of the actual drawings of Pieter Brueghel are lost to us, but we still can enjoy them through the engravings made by the burins of such artists as the Dutch publisher Philip Galle.
7. osier — willow twigs much used in basket-work
Her grandfather’s old creel turned out to be quite a fine handmade osier specimen, somewhat bleached by the sun but in very good shape overall.
8. misoneism — hatred of novelty or change
“Do you really believe that the desire to preserve some ideas, ideals, and artifacts of the past is mere misoneism?”
9. pomology — study and praxis of fruit-culture
Though one could make the technical case that one is merely a subset of the other, do not confuse viticulture with pomology.
10. paludal — of or pertaining to marshes
The Nazis once planned to drain the Pripet Marshes in order to deny the Russian and Polish partisans a hideout among the vast paludal wetlands.
1. parergon — embellishment, thing subordinate to main subject
Burgess maintains that the final chapter of A Clockwork Orange was essential to the novel and should never have been removed from the American edition, but Kubrick and many other readers have found it an unconvincing parergon.
2. adust — burnt up, scorched
But under the noonday sun our desert camp became unbearable even in the scanty shade as the temperature rose and rose until the very air was adust and seemed painful to breathe into our lungs.
3. shend — revile, scold
By every voice in the mainstream media his actions were shent, yet he remained unashamed.
4. effluvium — vapor or exhalation perceptible only to the sense of smell, esp. one that is noxious or disgusting
The community break room was bright and clean, yet opening the refrigerator released a repulsive effluvium reminiscent of both spoiled milk and dying flowers.
5. larrup — flog, beat, thrash
If he comes ’round here again, I’ll larrup him until he cannot stand upright.
6. iritis — inflammation of the iris
The cortisone he used for treating his chronic iritis had an expired several months past, but he swore that the medicament would still be “just fine”.
7. costermonger — person who sells fruit and vegetables from a street cart; (fig.) hawker of any wares
Virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers‘ times that true valor is turned bear-herd.
Henry IV, Part 2, Act I, Scene 2
8. ochlocracy — mob-rule
Fans of the movie Heavy Metal will recall the paean to ochlocracy by Black Sabbath (from the eponymous album) used in the story of the mute warrior maiden Taarna.
9. equerry — officer in charge of the horses of a royal or an exalted noble; groom
We found the body of the equerry in the stall belonging to the lord’s prize charger; we could not find the massive black Percheron anywhere upon the grounds.
10. fribble — to act aimlessly; to trifle, to behave frivolously; a trifler
He seemed to me to be the worst type of fribble: stupid enough to be convinced of his innate ability and insight, yet powerfully connected enough to cause real damage.
I follow Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dictum to not read books less than a year old for two reasons, and the second is not laziness. Caligula For President proved (in both senses) the second reason, because reading this book now convulses and repulses in a way it could not have done if read when originally published, during the twilight years of the last Bush presidency. This unclassifiable book might then have been only an enchanting exercise in genius, a staggering indictment of the American Dream turned Nightmare under the brute fist of Cheney and company. The cloud of hope might have made my reaction a mere chuckle, no more. To read this book now, however … what can I say? We already have grown nostalgic for Bush fils, an eventuality that I would have believed impossible a few dozen moons ago. But I found myself going further, furtively wishing that the protagonist of Cintra Wilson’s magnum opus, the Roman emperor Caligula himself, could somehow become president, as she outlines in this funny, depressing, brilliant, rollicking, educational satire.
Do not say, “Personally, I am as worthless as a bolt, but if I stop being an isolated bolt and start gathering with my equally undistinguished and bolt like neighbors, we are, collectively, a big sack of bolts that can hit things harder.”
You are not a bolt. You are a wonderful special individual with talents and hopes and dreams of great fortune, fame and luxury. You are going to sing on television and become rich beyond your wildest dreams just by writing upbeat affirmations on Post-its and sticking them on your bathroom mirror.
Caligula explains just how easy it is to manipulate and control us dolts … er, bolts
As emperor, you can be paranoid, corrupt, sadistic, drunk and incompetent, as long as you have a lot of very rich friends, a ridiculously aggressive approach to spin control and a highly fortified and corruptible private army.
Caligula stands strong for freedom … or something
Reading this work a decade after Caligula channeled it through Cintra Wilson allows us to perceive the amazing psychic prophetic power revealed within its pages. Its prophecy is not like that famous novel about the gigantic steam ship Titan (although the subtitle of The Wreck of the Titan, or Futility, might be apropos here). Rather its prescience is like that found in John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, where the future is perfectly revealed, only the earlier recognition and interpretation is distorted by viewing it through the imperfect lens of the past. What was dimly limned in the mirror Ms. Wilson held up to our decrepit body politic is now clearly seen in the present, where the ashes left behind by our incinerated hopes and dreams serve only to clog further our Cloaca Maxima which already cannot get rid of the fatberg of our corrupt septic excellence.
Here, for example, we see the effect of the DOJ’s OLC opinion stating the president cannot be prosecuted (the opinion itself another gift of the Bush presidency) in Caligula’s description of the uses of the Unitary Executive Theory:
If you wanna be a princeps legibus solutus–a princeps not bound by the laws–it helps if everyone else around you with any kind of executive power gets really confused by some overt proclamation of the legality of what you’re doing and therefore does nothing but stand around haplessly with their thumbs up their eunuchs.
Caligula explains John Yoo’s Unitary Executive Theory and its effects
Or this example of our now accepted disregard for the post-born child:
Due to the dictates of your capitalist economy and the corrupt mechanisms now set in the stone tables of your national laws, you are already helping me kill small children on a daily basis.
More hyperbole become prophecy
Or even outdoing Nostradamus with this entirely topical vision of remaking military uniforms to hearken back to the glory days of World War II:
I plan to increase voluntary enlistment numbers in the U.S. military by bringing back the inarguable sadomasochistic flair of Nazi tailoring.
Caligula — like you — loves a man in a uniform
Driving home listening to the East Village Opera Company’s rendition of “Un Bel Di” I was struck by the one missing note in Cintra Wilson’s prophetic book. ‘Twas not the leering dominance of the InterWebs and AppSpaceBook that she failed to limn, nor the continued balkanization of ideology and interest. What her Caligula did not see as clearly as we can a decade after, is just how much self-loathing we Americans turn out to have, just how much we veritably hate, hate, hate the very idea and ideals of democracy itself. Though Caligula riffs on the failure of slave revolts and how the powerful always win again, he had no concept in this 2008 book of how we despise even the simplest premises of the government we learned of in grammar school (no matter how divorced those lessons were from the reality, a point that Caligula For President pounds into our thick though small skulls quite effectively).
Will Caligula detain me in prison indefinitely until I am finally given pellets of angel dust and led blindfolded into RFK Stadium to fight hyenas wearing nothing but a loincloth made of ham?
You don’t need to worry about that right now.
Concentrate on this: My techniques, while criminally insane, cut through a massive amount of bureaucratic red tape.
Caligula promises to bring Reality TV into the 1st Century
Indeed, I had only two complaints — both minor — about this work. First, I wish that Caligula — sorry, I mean Cintra Wilson — had spent just a little time talking about the dictator Sulla, and I wish that Ms. Wilson (or her publishers) had used the Oxford comma.
I told you they were minor complaints.
I found this book among my novels, pulled it down and put it on the “to read and decide whether to keep” pile, and eventually started to read it. It is not a novel — there’s far too much actual history in it, both of the Roman Empire and of the Bush père presidency. But it isn’t history either, since the Caligula we meet here is based on the most scurrilous attacks by the foremost character assassins among the ancients, if this golden boy emperor might be heard on Howard Stern. We might call it political science, though attacks against Bush 41 for presidential overreach have grown dated and stale like a country medley on the Lawrence Welk Show. Thus when Ms. Wilson — I mean Caligula — points out the nefarious incestuous relationships between Cheney and the moguls who manipulated California’s energy market while creating the energy policy that was a blueprint for invading Iraq, and concludes by reminding us all that Cheney and Karl Rove distracted everyone from the news about this when it broke by blaming Gray Davis, who was recalled and replaced with The Terminator, we only think it quaint. Quaint and sad, particularly Caligula’s last words on the subject:
Nobody thinks about this major crime committed against the people of California anymore, because so many other crimes have been committed since then that nobody really remembers that one anymore.
Caligula said this eleven years ago. SAD! No, seriously, it’s quite sad.
So though it makes me sad, I will be keeping this book. I will keep it in the “Other” section of my library, alongside such luminous works as The Ship of Fools by Brant, Le Pétomane, and The Night Climbers of Cambridge. Also on those shelves is the spiritual ancestor (assuming there is any spirit left in this old world) of this book, the classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. An appropriate neighbor, since Caligula For President made me understand for the first time why Hunter S. pulled a Seneca the Younger and bought his own farm.
Realpolitik is not for the twee
True dat
I wish I could say this book lifts the spirit as it destroys illusions through the magic power of its fantastic style, just as the works of that other Thompson, Jim, had their lack of morals somewhat obviated by the damn fine writing. But I cannot. Truth be told, in neither case can the truly wonderful style and powerful writing belie the underlying depression, despair, and eternal pit revealed in the writer’s words. And our current universe has fallen into an even deeper black hole than the center of Jim Thompson’s dark vision. Asking “Is there any hope?” only makes sense in a world where words and ideas have meaning, and to ask “Is there even any meaning?” is to recognize that the game is fixed, is over, and we lost every bet that was made for us before we were even born.
When your government stops bothering to lie to you, it seems like they just don’t care. It’s like letting the White House lawn turn brown and walking out to press conferences with a bottle of Seagram’s gin ‘n’ juice, wearing a polar fleece housecoat streaked with Egg Beaters and a shower cap and screaming unintelligible obscenities into the microphone. It gives You People the impression that your dictator isn’t even trying.
But Caligula cares, he really does. He just doesn’t care about You People.
Our only hope at this dark juncture may be the collapse of everything, though if that’s hope then we’re in deep trouble. What can be done? Nothing can be done. Not the nothing of nihilists secretly hoping they look cool, but true nothing. Caligula is promising Hopelessness, and “the good news is, you’re at least halfway there.” And this is why I highly recommend this book.
Oh, oh, look out … a march. On the streets! With big banners! Saying, STOP, BAD GOVERNMENT! STOP DOING THAT BAD, BAD THING!
Hold me, Mother! We must, as a governing body, stop doing immoral things immediately, or bisexual college girls with nose rings might wave colorful signs at us!
Caligula is simply terrified of your futile demonstrations
I very rarely recommend books — personal taste being so, well, personal and everything, and besides I have to admit that what I have isn’t exactly taste. But I am recommending this one strongly in spite of the fact that a) 97% of you will not like it. (It’s got a parental advisory sticker cowering in the corner of the room, sobbing quietly to itself.) And b) 97% of the remaining 3% will merely find that it confirms and reinforces your already extant despair. But! It is my hope — “Not dead, yet!” — that the remaining 0.09% may discover some path out of our Slough of Despond which does not lead directly to Hell, and I pray you please tell me where and whither that path lies.
I will simply try to ignore the fact that I do not have anywhere near enough friends — neither online nor in real life — to make 0.09% of that number anything other than a very close approximation of Zero.
1. embonpoint — healthy plumpness; fleshy part of the body, esp. of the bosom
Though two decades had passed, she seemed just the same — well, a slight tendency to embonpoint perhaps, which was only heightened by the stately curves of her gown.
2. catarrh — secretions from the nose and eyes which accompany allergies or a cold
He always had had a rheumy constitution, and as rare as a sunny week in San Francisco was a week which found him unhampered by allergies, coughs, and catarrh.
3. melismatic — of song or melody, as opposed to recitative music
From a thousand karaoke bars and ten thousand videos sprang more and more devotees of the melismatic arts, though most had stronger faith than talent.
4. gandy dancer — member of a railroad work gang tasked with laying or maintaining track
Though men of every race worked as gandy dancers in the heyday of American rail, all were eventually replaced by machines.
5. oxter — (Scot. and N. Eng.) armpit
A trained pikeman kens well the weak points of an armoured knight, and will aim for the groin, oxter, and throat if he can get at them.
6. parenteral — administered systemically otherwise than through alimentary canal
The patient was given parenteral fluids to supplement the small amount of clear fluids she was able to ingest by mouth.
7. petard — small explosive device formerly used in warfare for breaching gates, doors, or walls
It matters not that they dropped the portcullis before we struck down the defenders at the gate, as our miners will make short work of it with but a single petard.
8. otiose — superfluous, useless; nugatory
One might well believe that our political news is merely an otiose dumb show designed rather to distract than to edify.
9. kettle — (Brit.) to confine to a small area as means of crowd control
As soon as the clock struck five, the police quickly kettled the demonstrators, leaving them only one exit route over an overpass heavily surveilled by the brute squad.
10. disbound — (of a book) having the binding removed or loose
It is extremely rare to find a disbound Dover edition, but this copy of Mumford’s The Brown Decades had only a strip of cardboard along the spine remaining to protect the still tight signatures.
I was confronted at the front desk by a rebarbative adolescent, if I can be excused the tautology, who claimed the right to review my credentials before passing me on to the vice principal.
2. compurgator — witness to an accused person’s innocence or truthfulness
From the Old English system of compurgators arose some elements of our modern jury system.
3. mangonel — old war engine for hurling large stones
Our ponderous catapults could not maintain the quick rate of fire that the mangonels of the enemy used to their great advantage.
4. apotelesm — the casting of a horoscope
Before his appointment as privy secretary he was required to submit his date of birth so that the court astrologer could provide the results of his apotelesm to the duke.
5. gallows tree — metal support to hold pot over kitchen fire
The big bad wolf found himself impaled upon the gallows tree when he entered the third little pig’s house through the brick chimney, which saved him from falling into the boiling water, but which burned his nether regions as it tore his groin.
6. merryandrew — buffoon, clown; assistant to a mountebank
Everybody plays the merryandrew sometimes, as the old song says.
7. quacksalver — imposter to the medical art
Surprisingly, the products of this quacksalver seemed to bring temporary relief to many sufferers, although this might have been due to the high alcohol content.
8. raree show — peep show; spectacle
The clickworthy ‘news’ apps have become the modern raree show, encouraging thousands to stare listlessly into their phones just as passerby in past times were lured into staring into the traveling barker’s box in search of the demonstrations of minuscule (and perhaps imaginary) circus fleas.
9. algesia — sensitivity to pain
Though one might think that we suffer due to our algesia, people who are born without this sensitivity usually die in childhood due to their inability to correctly identify and react to physical hazards.
10. prognathous — having protruding jaws
His profile seemed so prognathous that I doubted my spare motorcycle helmet would fit him.
You have shown yourself recreant before all assembled here, false to your duty and false to your word.
2. pruritus — itching, esp. with no visible cause
Of course, pruritus may manifest itself when merely mentioned, much in the manner of certain allergies.
3. fremescent — murmuring, increasingly noisy
Our lazy reverie upon the sleepy river was interrupted by a fremescent sound like distant thunder, which we finally realized came from a dangerous set of rapids athwart our course.
4. barratry — misconduct by ship’s master or crew against the interest of the shipowner
Joe and Bob got the captain good and drunk, locked him in his cabin, and then sailed the rusty tub to the Sandoval Islands where they sold the ship for scrap, adding barratry to their earlier mutiny.
5. haplopia — normal eyesight
In Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian short story “Harrison Bergeron”, the eponymous protagonist is forced to wear distorting lenses to ‘handicap’ him for his haplopia.
6. vigneron — wine-grower
The Georgia colony during the days of Oglethorpe was fortunate to have the services of the Jewish vigneron and physician, Samuel Nunes.
7. obus — artillery shell
Making his way past the barbed wire and the obus, skirting the foxholes and the shell craters, he carried the kitten cradled within his gas mask bag towards the one remaining patch of greenery on the horizon.
Completely filled after the torrential rains, the 30-gallon bin carried two-and-a-half hundredweight of water, making it impossible to move until drained.
9. morbific — causing disease
Though your mother’s exhortation to bundle up lest you catch a cold has merit, the freezing weather has no morbific effect, rather its danger lies in the lessened resistance it imparts to your immune system.
10. discectomy — cutting out part or all of a spinal disc
Though he had tried to remain hopeful, he was pleased beyond all measure by how immediately the discectomy relieved all the pain he had been enduring for the past six months.
