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Repost: I love new words

I love words. I love them a lot. I could cuddle them and hug them and call them “George.” I have read dictionaries and encyclopedias, in search not only of new knowledge, but in search of wonderful, new, intriguing words.

I have favorite words, and I rejoice when I find new words.

Reigning champions on the favorite word dais: “spackle” and “eigenvalue.” I’ve worked construction before (and fixed my own homes, thank you); spackle is pretty ordinary (but a fun word.) I have never, to my knowledge, correctly used “eigenvalue” in context. (I’ve used it incorrectly a lot. It’s one of my favorite words! Eiiiiiigenvaaaaaaaluuuuuuuuue.)

Today’s new word comes courtesy of Grantland.com, in Video Games Killed the Video-Game Star: “bathykolpian.” In context:

…unless, that is, you expect a string quartet to be playing while you present your girl with her De Beers engagement ring or a bathykolpian hottie to whip off your trousers at the first whiff of Axe’s Dark Temptation body spray.

I … was imagining something from H. P. Lovecraft upon reading this.

Tentacles, seaweed, claws, while being curiously physically attractive somehow. I don’t think I actually thought this imagery through very well; it’s sort of like imagining a magazine dedicated to Cthulhu fetishes.

However, it’s nothing so dramatic; “bathykolpian” means “deep-bosomed,” after a moment’s research on google. However, the glory here is first that it’s a new word, and second that it sounds totally cool. I know I’ll not have any use for it in ordinary life, but that doesn’t detract from the happiness of a new word.

The article actually had one other piece of advice for video games, although I’d say the advice would be well worth following in real life as well:

There is, anyway, only one story worth telling in a zombie game, and here it is: See those zombies over there? You should probably get away from them.

Noted. If I see zombies, I’ll probably get away from them.

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