h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now there's a word y'dont hear too often.
Most dictionaries quote it's use by Lord Chesterfield in one of his famous 'Letters To His Son'. The one from Jan 15th 1763.

~jwf~

I was puzzled for a moment, as the description of this nonsense was written by our redoubtable editor, who has quite a vocabulary.

I am honoured to be in the company of Lord Chesterfield, even though we probably don't share a taste in furniture.

I think I first came across the word in "The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven", Guy Wetmore Carryl's take on the fable (and a parody of La Fontaine's)

Beneath the tree's umbrageous limb
A hungry fox sat smiling;
He saw the raven watching him,
And spoke in words beguiling:
"J'admire," said he, "ton beau plumage,"
(The which was simply persiflage).

Full version: http://www.bartleby.com/248/1656.html

So the word "persiflage" always sticks that poem in my head.

The great advantage of being prone to collecting odd facts is odd associations.

That's like my professor at Bonn, who said the American soldier guarding him in a POW camp reminded him so much of a character in Gottfried's 'Tristan'. (The explanation of why is too long and tedious to repeat here, but was endearing.)

Now, it made me think that having all that junk in your head is a comfort in troubled times.

If he could remember a long poem in an archaic language in 1945, it meant his brain was still working. And the bad guys lost.

*goes off pondering whether 'umbrageous limbs' take umbrage easily...*

"Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,—
Depart,—be off,—excede,—evade,—erump!"

= Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Oh, law.

I saw those lactiferous maids the other night. Elektra was at work, and the Spike channel was showing the Hooters beauty pageant...