Make Yourself Impossible to Understand

The Gilded Tongue: Overly Eloquent Words for Everyday Things (2006)
by Rod L. Evans

If your goal is to master the English vocabulary and drive your listeners or readers mad, then the book to peruse is The Gilded Tongue.

I was at a loose end the other day and picked a random book from my tsundoku pile.

That’s how I got to the 217-page The Gilded Tongue a decade after acquiring it.

I have seen my fair share of English vocabulary books but this one is non pareil.

Every single word in the book is bound to leave you scratching your head. No exaggeration there!

Thanks to The Gilded Tongue, agathokakological, agraffe, borborygmus, callipygian, cockalorum, lentiginous, niminy-piminy, omnipath, quean, steatopygic, verbigerate, Xanthippe, zaftig and scores of other esoteric words are now part of my linguistic arsenal.

Have I encountered any of these words before?

Maybe, I had stumbled upon a few of them. But I could recollect the meanings of just two: Xanthippe and borborygmus.

Because of my reading of history, I knew Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife, and her name is sometimes used as a synonym for shrew. Borborygmus refers to the sound caused by movement of gas in the intestine. As for the rest, I’ll confess their meanings were all foreign to me.

The book adds to its allure, at least to me, by the inclusion of a 49-page Reverse-Dictionary: the meanings are provided first followed by the word.

I’d recommend The Gilded Tongue only to hardcore logomaniacs. The rest can give it a pass.

A new copy of The Gilded Tongue costs $21, but an used one can be purchased for $5 on the auction sites.