There's A Word For It !

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My girlfriend brought a book over last week, “There’s A Word For It” by Charles H. Elster. Anyone ever heard or even used some of these words?
fudgeon: A squat, fussy person
.
frottage: (fraw-TAZH) sexual excitiment or gratification derived from rubbing one’s body against another person, typically in a crowded public conveyance such as an elevator, bus, or train.

buffarilla: an extremely ugly woman (a blend of buffalo and gorilla). Synonyms include scag, scank and bowzer.

2

I’ve heard of frottage… I can’t say I’ve ever used it (well, I could, but it would be a lie ;)), and I don’t have the slightest idea where I’ve heard it, but I have.

Ironically, my life is still embraced by “The New Celibacy” of the 70’s. Go figure. :rolleyes:

Mike

3

I’ve never had occasion to use the word, but I was not aware that frottage was rare or unknown. Certainly, in the general public I would have expected somewhat wider knowledge of that than of felch or squink.

4

This is a problem in many countries with dense co-ed subways. One of the reasons given as to why some Japanese subways have a separate women’s car was to protect them from unwanted assaults by frisky men. I have heard of incidents involving sexual pleasuring by contact with young girls in New York, Mexico City, and Paris. But thankfully I never have seen it myself in my own travels.
Frudgeon is a word which must have some resemblance to words like curmudgeon and dudgeon. Now I have this image of a frumpy dull guy looking for nubile chickadees on the metro…

5

At my college there was a group that threw a “Frottage Party” every year where you were supposed to wear clothes that felt good to touch and stuff, and rubbing and touching people was encouraged. Good times.

6

I bought that book as well… I am really into cool things about language. However, I was disappointed when I noticed that one of the German words the author mentions is misspelled… not good when you write a book for the linguistics crowd. So I kind of lost faith in this book, thinking “what about the more exotic languages, if he couldn’t even get the easy ones (e.g.German) right?”

7

I love obscure words. I’ll have to go across the street to the B&N and look at that book. My current personal favorite: Callipygian: having well shaped buttocks.