Dictionscary

"Funicular." It starts with fun, so it can't be bad, right? Wrong. That would be like sticking your head in a raging furnace, hoping to see a fern.  Chances are 80-20 that if something is "-icular" it is going to be nasty. You know what I mean:  cancerous prefixes like "test-" or "mast-" -- and manslaughtery ones like "vehi-" or "curr-" -- all leap immediately to mind. But to be "funicular," in particular, is to be ropey and nasty. The root of the word is "funicle," which in botany is a term that refers to the stalk of an ovule or seed. In…

"Squalid" refers to something filthy and repulsively foul -- like the living conditions of a cat collector with an affinity for gourmet cheese -- but to me it sounds even worse. When I hear the word "squalid" the very sound of the letters makes me think of a "squid" with a "wall" in the middle of it -- the wall of a nasal cavity. It also sounds sort of square, sort of solid, but not quite either of those -- more lumpy and slumping like some lesser Lovecraftian monstrosity. Yeah, Squalid is the younger brother of Nyarlathotep, but he isn't…

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that "suppurate" described the after-effect of a satisfying dinner. A term for how you satisfied, sated, and sedated you feel when you sit on the couch after, say, a Thanksgiving meal, opening your belt. But no: "suppurate" is the fancy word we reserve to describe pustular discharge. Slimy, often freakishly yellow, leakage. The putrid rot that spills from a burst boil or infected blister. It comes from the Latin term "puris" which means "pus" though there's nothing pure about it, since pus is surely disgusting. I have a friend who once argued…