Curious Compendium? Indeed So

Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words: A Miscellany of Obscure Terms, Bizarre Phrases, Surprising Etymologies (2023)
by Erin McCarthy & the team at Mental Floss

Let me explain word lovers for just a second.

They’re a strange breed.

Word lovers will use quakebuttock when coward would suffice. Instead of slamming an unreadable book as bad, they’re prone to attack it as bumfodder.

Logophiles gather word power books the way Casanova picked up women. Count me among this tribe (I mean the word power book-lover tribe).

I have seen my fair share of word power books, but seldom do I find one that lives up to its name.

Put together by the people at Mental Floss, Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words is a treat for word lovers in some respects but fails in others.

The book is organized by categories (far too many to name). Here are a few of them: business buzzwords, truck driver slang, prison slang, etc.

For me, a huge plus in the book was the chapter, A World of Words, devoted to foreign words. The chapter includes words from French, Hindi, Dutch, German, Korean, Icelandic, Polish, Kwangali, Japanese, Afrikaans, etc.

Sadly, Curious Compendium lacks an index. So if you want to look up a word you glanced at last week you’re out of luck.

Also missing is the pronunciation of words. Another vexing issue with the book: absence of how the words are used in a sentence.

But the book richly compensates for its omissions with a huge collection of interesting words, many of them new to me.

Here are some of the interesting words and odd phrases I discovered in the book:

• Kabab Mein Haddi: a Hindi expression referring to an unwanted person tagging along on dates
• Debbie Downer, a slang word meaning a negative person.
• Neatify (obsolete): to tidy up
• Moshi Moshi: Japanese way of saying Hello on the phone
• Indian-giver: One who gives something and takes it back
• the goat (greatest of all time): Someone excellent in what they do. Apparently, the boxing legend Muhammed Ali used the phrase to refer to himself.
• Snake milker: person extracting venom from snakes
• Slop-seller: one who peddles cheap garments
• Juice joint: speakeasy or any place that serves booze
• Borborygm: rumbling sounds in the intestine caused by gas and sometimes triggered by hunger
• Pho: Vietnamese noodle soup
• Bumfodder: toilet paper
• Necrologist: a person who writes obituaries
• Gollumpus: a large clumsy fellow
• Infaustus: unlucky
• Kerfuffle: commotion or fuss
• Tragomasachlia: smelly armpits

Its shortcomings aside, Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words is still a keeper.