I’m so excited

I’m so excited. I’ve found one of the two missing persons from my youth. Ever since the Internet became a way of connecting one with folk from the past I have wanted to know what happened to two particular friends. And now I have traced one of them. This will mean a long, long e-mail once the link is formalised – i.e. assuming she responds to the Friends Re-united request to acknowledge my existence.

How do you sum up 35+ years. Even the most boring existence has quite a lot of events in it during that sort of period. I think there'll be a couple of long e-mails in the offing.


Although we were never romantically linked Sue and I often used to sit up into the early hours, usually in her flat, with Radio Luxembourg in the background, and philosophise. It is so easy to put the world to rights over a cup of coffee when you are twenty one years old.

Words

At college a close friend, Sue Harding, and I used to try to learn one new word each day. The idea was to ensure that we dropped it into the conversation at the earliest opportunity. Of those words, I can recall that we learned together - pinguid, pusillanimous, plunk, polemic. These have remained some of my favourite words ever since - both for their own sound and for their association with Sue in whose company I spent many happy hours. Thanks for all the coffees, Sue.

Here are some more of my favourite words:-
astragal - a narrow half-round moulding
Beelzebub - fallen angel in Milton's Paradise Lost
bizarre - strikingly out of the ordinary
bazaar - a market (as in the Middle East) selling miscellaneous goods
blessed – {when pronounced bless-ed) - held in reverence
comely – having a pleasing appearance
egregious – conspicuous, especially conspicuously bad
eleemosynary - of, relating to, or supported by charity
flibbertigibbert - a silly flighty person
gelid – very colds, icy
gnarled -  full of knots
gnash – to strike or grind
harlequin - a character in comedy and pantomime with a shaved head, masked face, variegated tights, and wooden sword
ineluctable - not to be avoided, changed, or resisted
laconic – concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious
malacologist - student of molluscs
mendacious - characterized by deception or falsehood
moonset - the descent of the moon below the horizon
numpty – idiot; general foolishness
onomatopoeic - the use of words whose sound suggests the sense
opsimath - mature student; late learner
parabolic – relating to a parabola (motion in a parabolic curve)
philately – stamp collecting
pinguid – greasy
plangent - loud and sad
plunk - dive: drop steeply; make a hollow sound
polemic - work that intends to stir up controversy
procrastinate - to put off intentionally and habitually
pusillanimous – contemptibly fearsome, lacking in courage
quetzel - Rare Central American bird; the Resplendent Quetzel is the national bird of Guatemala
rhetoric -  the art of speaking or writing effectively
rubric - order of service, rule for exam
serendipity – finding agreeable things by accident
sesquipedalian - having many syllables
squelch – to emit a sucking sound
tautology - needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word
tmesis - separation of parts of a compound word by the intervention of one or more words
tranquil – free from agitation of mind or spirit, disturbance or turmoil
viridian - a chrome green pigment that is a hydrated oxide of chromium
whimsy - a fanciful or fantastic device, object, or creation
widdershins - in a left-handed, wrong, or contrary direction
willy-nilly - in a haphazard or spontaneous manner

Sentence for Sue – Is it permissible for people to procrastinate during polemic discussions on the possibility of plunking pinguid pork pies through pure pusillanimity?