This book will certainly help. Although I've been reading for many years, I've had to get up a few times and consult my dictionary. Normally, one would expect to find such a rich vocabulary from an older writer, but a lot of this material was written when he was a teenager.

Here are a few of the words I had to look up, which I can't recall having been exposed to before:

mulcting (to penalize by fining)

bowspritted (a horrible way to die; your body is impaled on the spar of a ship and left there to rot)

ataractic (relating to or producing calmness)

And he made use of "semaphore" in one story, which is a rare word and a rare (now) means of communication. I didn't think suspense could be created with semaphore technology, but it was there.

I've read 10 of the stories so far and one has already become a favorite. The Education of Tigress McCardle is written from the viewpoint of a history class in the 2700s, where they are recalling how China conquered the U.S. I don't think I've read anything more amusing. (If you're married - you should definitely read it.)

It's also a puplsiher/distributor of music in certain Latin America countries as well. Makes sense for a company such as that to have such a name; music is a form of comminication.

I've always liked 'assything.' It's an amusing word for obvious reasons despite an entirely different meaning, and sort of illustrates well why some words fall into desuetude, or rather, disuse.

I wonder why they would use that word. I checked the etymology and it's Greek, not Latin. (sema = sign ; -phore = bearer) Of course, they are more than welcome to use Greek based words, but it seems more logical for them to borrow from their parent language. I'm not sure what "sign bearer" would look like in Latin, as there are many verbs that signify "to bear" or "to carry". I remember having trouble with those two verbs 13 years ago. Although sign is simply "signum".

I'll be scumfiddled. Such desuetude is deplorable!

Naturally, it's not listed in my dictionary. I had to gamscrog google for the goods:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/1/ … inct-Words

I think this thread will embiggen us all.  It's perfectly cromulent.

^^ That's a pretty nice article outside the shots at the repuplicans. Still, if I want to see someone bash them I'll watch Family Guy instead; Seth MacFarline pretty much made a career out of it.

It's really not that difficult to do.  They've made it SO EASY over the last decade or so.