A Conversation for The h2g2 Word of the Day (Discontinued)
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Deb_P Started conversation Jun 26, 2000
mendacious :- untruthful (first came across this as an aside to a song sung by Fats Waller...)
somnambulist - sleep walker (just a great mouthful of a word..)
A link for the curious:
http://www.oed.com/public/readers/appeal.htm
the derivation of certain words, or new usage for existing words, is not always documented - your chance to put the dictionary right!
a couple more
The real Mad Max Posted Jun 27, 2000
I beat them all: in german you just put the words together: "man of the moon" would be "moonman".
So there appear things like: "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze" ,or even longer.
I`l try to translate it: "hat of the captain of the company of steamships on the danuvia"
It`s kind of a game, but there are also official words like "Straßenverkehrsordnungsdelikt", which means that you parked wrong, or something like that. 
a couple more WOTDs
Argon0 (50 and feeling it - back for a bit) Posted Jun 27, 2000
How about Coprophobia - a fear of s**t..
or
Mendicant - A tramp - originally - member of any of several Roman Catholic religious orders who assumes a vow of poverty and supports himself or herself by work and charitable contributions (see online Encyc Britannica). First came across this one in the Sergio Aragones strip "Groo - the wanderer" - a barbarian with very little brain!
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