Sun FEATURES sec front herald 091228jz YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN BLACK 0% 5% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 95% 100% Next page > Sunday, March 7, 2010 Sharon, Pennsylvania FeaturesFeatures Bridal ................C-7 C TV grid ..............C-5 Curling club members lead newcomers through some Unusual, archaic stretching and warmup exercises before hitting the ice. words are rarely Curling uses upper-body strength for vigorous sweeping of the ice and leg and arm muscles in throwing rocks. used but remain in the lexicon NGLISH HAS hundreds of thousands of words in Eits lexicon, as witnessed by the Oxford English Dictio- nary, the definitive dictionary of the English language. Many are obscure or un- usual. How many of the fol- lowing words do you recog- nize: lygerastia, oculopania, qualtagh, scolecopha- geous, tibialo- concupiscent, viriginity, aba- Marsha Hunt/Herald cinate, batra- After a teammate hurls a curling stone, sweepers briskly chophagous, sweep a path in front of it to increase its speed by melting cheiloproclitic, the ice to create a slightly wet, slippery surface. John Zavinski/Herald and my fa- Jack vorite unusual Smith word: zenz- A Word izenzizenzic? with You Some obscure words crop up PITTSBURGH only in crosswords and some- times in the mouths of insuf- ferable people who like to show how smart they are. Chances are you have never Wanna-be encountered any of them Some have a familiar ring. The sound of viriginity, for in- stance, would lead most of us to its meaning: “masculine qualities in a woman.” Or, tib- ialoconcupiscent, which holds John Zavinski/Herald Rock stars in it the common word concu- Curlers use their brooms to signal a shot target in the piscent, which means “strong bull’s-eye-like “house” that curling stones are slid toward sexual desire.” Put tibialo in Olympics fuel surge of interest in quirky sport of curling from about 100 feet away at the other end of the ice. front of it and you get “having a lascivious interest in watch- By John Zavinski mugs of imported Molson ing a woman put on stock- Herald Director of Graphics beer. My digital-video record- ings.” No doubt you know & Technology er peaked at 98 percent full what it means when someone and overwrote most every- says, “My boyfriend has a foot Speed skaters flew by half- thing else I had saved. fetish.” If he had a lip fetish noticed on the large-screen While the United States he would be cheiloproclitic. I TV in a local tavern as my girl- men’s team took a bronze am surprised that lygerastia is friend and I joined some other medal in 2006, this year nei- an unusual word, for its mean- couples for drinks on the sec- ther the men’s nor women’s ing is certainly not unusual: ond night of the Winter team were worthy of anything “the condition of one who is Olympic Games. more than lead or zinc, both only amorous when the lights Eventually, the conversation finishing with pathetic 2-7 are out.” If you practice oculo- turned to the Games. records in preliminary play, plania, you are guilty of “let- “What’s that one weird which melted any hopes of ting your eyes wander while sport,” one spouse asked, “the even competing for the gold. assessing someone’s charms.” one with ...” Heck, I could do better. Ap- The “z” word above strikes “With brooms?” I respond- parently that was also on the my fancy because it has many ed. “Why, you are speaking of minds of nearly 1,000 others repetitions of the final alpha- none other than the honorable who during Olympics week- bet letter. I wonder, could its sport of curling, which com- ends swamped the Pittsburgh inventor have had a speech bines the best aspects of bowl- Curling Club’s learn-to-curl impediment? In mathematics ing and housekeeping.” I then nights at their home ice at the it refers to “a number raised continued with how I’d be- Robert Morris University Is- to the eighth power.” (Hmm, come a fan during past Winter land Sports Center on Neville don’t you think it should have Games and looked forward to Island, west of Pittsburgh. not six but eight z’s?) watching the current competi- I headed there last Satur- Some unusual words might tion. day for the second of two make you wonder why we Little could I have imagined nights aimed “to get as many need them. For example, aba- that two Saturdays later I folks on the ice as possible cinate means “to blind by put- would find myself on the ice, during the Olympics,” as the ting a hot copper basin near broom in hand, learning the club community-outreach co- someone’s eyes.” Someone game in person. ordinator Dan Bliss wrote by who eats frogs is batra- My familiarity with the e-mail before the event. It chophagous; one who eats quirky ice sport goes back to would have been hard to get worms is scolecophagous. childhood, where the dozen more people onto the ice. channels on our cable system For those who had been Some unusual words in Warren, Pa., included one glued to Olympic coverage, might make you won- or two from Ontario, Canada, the event had traits of those der why we need where the sport is second only fantasy baseball or guitar them. For example, to hockey. On Saturday morn- camps, where you get to be ings, between cartoon shows, something of your dreams. abacinate means one channel would invariably The line of participants Marsha Hunt/Herald “to blind by putting a show grainy, black-and-white snaked through the ice com- Above, The Her- hot copper basin near coverage of curling competi- plex, and it took two hours to ald’s John Zavinski someone’s eyes.” tion – some kind of game in- reach the head of the line for concentrates as he volving ice, throwing some- a half-hour of ice time. Club prepares to “deliver” thing and old men with straw members passed out candy a curling stone. The The creation of new words, kitchen brooms sweeping and, as if they were Canadi- shot was more suc- neologisms, is ongoing. We in- madly, perhaps to create some ans, apologized profusely for cessful than his first vent words as we see the need, or we do it for fun. Take kind of air whoosh. My broth- the delay. attempt moments octomom, for example. Who ers and I paid it little heed, Once at the head of the earlier (at left), waiting instead for Rocky and line, small groups got a quick knew we would need a word when he landed for a woman who gave birth Bullwinkle to come on. overview and were led in spread out flat on But nowadays I can’t seem stretching exercises. to octuplets? Will it drop into the ice after failing to get enough of seeing it, es- Then it was off to the ice in obscurity a generation from pecially since it’s only on TV groups of seven to 10. We to hold the proper now? The New York Times, every four years. I find it ad- learned how to deliver a rock leg and feet Sunday, Dec. 20, cited the dicting; I spent every evening by pushing off from the positions. word aporkalypse, no doubt during the Games catching up “hack” – a track-like starting borrowed from apocalypse, as on hours of recorded coverage block – with our left foot slid- “undue worry in response to while appropriately quaffing See ROCK STARS, page C-5 swine flu.” Many obscure or unusual words were in common use at one time. We label them ar- chaic. Archaic words are old forms that survive in our un- derstanding but are not gener- ally used today. Perhaps the best-known ar- chaic word in English is thou, the old singular form of you. Shakespeare’s plays, as any bewildered school boy or girl will attest, are full of words See UNUSUAL, page C-5 Inside 6 ODD BW herald 091228jz YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN BLACK 0% 5% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 95% 100% Next page > www.sharonherald.com THE HERALD, Sharon, Pa., Sunday, March 7, 2010 C-5 Rock stars Unusual Olympics fuel surge Rarely used words of interest in curling remain in the lexicon from page C-1 from page C-1 ing on a shoeprint-shaped that have gone out of use. Teflon slider. Never stand “Alack, I am afraid they have straight up on the slider, we awaked, and ’tis not done” were warned. You’ll fall flat on (Macbeth, Act II, Scene II). the ice. “Up, gentlemen: you shall see The crouched position was sport anon.” (Ford to Sir supposed to rest one fifth of Hugh Evans and others, The body weight on a broom Merry Wives of Windsor). tucked under the left shoulder More often than not, we and the rest on the 42-pound guess the meaning from the granite “rock” that we were context. According to one sliding. AP count, Shakespeare used six- My first attempt landed me Germany’s Andy Kapp, left, and Daniel Herberg, discuss a shot in a match against China in men’s curling at the Vancou- ty-two words we consider ar- flat on my face – my girlfriend chaic today. laughing hysterically nearby ver 2010 Olympics . As it stands, the two rocks with light-colored handles would each score a point for that team because Everyone of a certain age while trying to take pictures.