$20 Words

[stickygirl]

I was reading Master and Commander to get back in a normal mood after writing a fairly emotionally intense lesdom scene, and hit these two sentences with both $20 words and $20 construction:

Nacreous is a great word.

By itself nacreous is an interesting word, but I don't think it fits its meaning at all. One might imagine it referred to a dead thing, not something of beauty, but I see it's derived from a French word and they have a talent for making the beautiful sound ugly.

I enjoyed the quoted nautical terms, recognising most of them and it is common practise for short-handed crews to reduce sail at night. No doubt Sophie had a full compliment.

 

[Voboy]

I enjoyed the quoted nautical terms, recognising most of them and it is common practise for short-handed crews to reduce sail at night. No doubt Sophie had a full compliment.

Merchantmen always reduced sail at night. It was a longstanding and bitter complaint of escorting Navy officers. They made their views known during the whole war, but there was nothing the Admiralty could do; the merchant captains didn't work for them, and didn't care if they pissed off the escort captains.

O'Brien definitely had a way with words. He had the rare gift of making his stories sound "old-timey" without making them stuffy, and his nautical knowledge was top-notch.

 

[stickygirl]

Merchantmen always reduced sail at night. It was a longstanding and bitter complaint of escorting Navy officers. They made their views known during the whole war, but there was nothing the Admiralty could do; the merchant captains didn't work for them, and didn't care if they pissed off the escort captains.

O'Brien definitely had a way with words. He had the rare gift of making his stories sound "old-timey" without making them stuffy, and his nautical knowledge was top-notch.

I assume you know your kevel from your panama cleat, sir? Or I'll have you tied to the Fife rail and give you a taste of the pussy!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Donning Kevlar and Nomex after the last time... Sorry, sorry, sorry!

'Hypergolic' (as in A + B = ) Used by the protagonist in describing the effect on his libido of watching his wife's two best friends making out in front of him.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I assume you know your kevel from your panama cleat, sir?

This gave me significant I see you know your judo well vibes. This is democracy manifest.

 

[Ian_Snow]

Love you a word as much as Carl Hiaasen loves "lugubrious."

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Love you a word as much as Carl Hiaasen loves "lugubrious."

I sat on a scholarship review board where I was the least educated; I have a BS.
After reviewing what turned out to be the winning essay, the lawyer on the committee asked, “Does anybody know what lugubrious means?”

We had to find a dictionary to look it up.

FWIW, the other committee members, besides me and the lawyer, were an ophthalmologist and a veterinarian.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Donning Kevlar and Nomex after the last time... Sorry, sorry, sorry!

'Hypergolic' (as in A + B = ) Used by the protagonist in describing the effect on his libido of watching his wife's two best friends making out in front of him.

To anybody who loves concepts like "hypergolic", I commend Things I Won't Work With.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

To anybody who loves concepts like "hypergolic", I commend Things I Won't Work With.

Eek! I’ll add that to my list. (Which started, if it matters, when a prof started lecturing about a common rocket fuel component - red fuming nitric acid. Which, ‘cause it will eat its way through to the centre of the earth, has to be mixed with more fun stuff like hydrogen fluoride and dinitrogen-tetroxide. Having a sentimental attachment to most body parts, my interest in rocket science took a u-turn right about then.)

 

[yowser]

Mark Twain's verbiage, from Roughing It:

In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life. Then he smacked his lips once or twice, and reached after the other sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile of such contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the daintiest thing about an overcoat. The tails went next, along with some percussion caps and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople. And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance in that--manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was treading on dangerous ground, now. He began to come across solid wisdom in those documents that was rather weighty on his stomach; and occasionally he would take a joke that would shake him up till it loosened his teeth; it was getting to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip with good courage and hopefully, till at last he began to stumble on statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity. He began to gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-bench, and died a death of indescribable agony. I went and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact that I ever laid before a trusting public.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Eek! I’ll add that to my list. (Which started, if it matters, when a prof started lecturing about a common rocket fuel component - red fuming nitric acid. Which, ‘cause it will eat its way through to the centre of the earth, has to be mixed with more fun stuff like hydrogen fluoride and dinitrogen-tetroxide. Having a sentimental attachment to most body parts, my interest in rocket science took a u-turn right about then.)

That level of rocket science is something that I'm quite content to watch from a distance. And by "from a distance" I mean "on television". And by "watch on television" I mean "read about".