Thursday, June 08, 2006

floccinaucinihilipilification

I have been a subscriber to "AWAD" (A Word A Day) for more years than I can remember. It's a service run by a great person named Anu Garg who sends words to the world every weekday. (BTW, my most favorite part of Anu's site is the anagram server. You must check it out!) I started getting this delivered to my email box because of the quotes at the bottom of each email. But I also enjoy the words and their definitions and etymologies.

Today's word is floccinaucinihilipilification. What I appreciate most about this word is that it really is not as complicated as it seems (the fact that it means, in essence, "nothing," is also enjoyable). It's actually just the running together of four Latin words that all mean basically nothing. And being that I was a student of Latin in high school and am still a huge fan, I can remember that.

...One item that troubles me, however, about floccinaucinihilipilification is the first part of the word. "Flocci" (plural, I believe, of "floccus") means "tuft of wool." Hey!! Wool is not nothing. Although, I guess one couldn't make much of anything with simply a tuft. A little bit of thrumming is all, I guess.

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