Weird Words
Posted by:
Ken K. (IP Logged)
Date: 6 May, 2020 06:30PM
Over a decade ago I purchased Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon by Dan Clore. This scholarly tome has been very useful when I encounter a particularly abstruse or recondite term from certain fictional works (I'm sure you can guess the ones I am referring to!) Apart from such utile consultation I am also reading it cover to cover, for pleasure. I'm about a third of the way through it--the next word to come is "dryad". I'm certainly not rushing it; usually I read a couple pages (or definitions) every other month or so.
During the current shelter-in-place isolation I have perhaps gained a bit more time to contemplate small pleasures. I'm largely the stay-at-home type to begin with, so naturally my thoughts have turned to reading and books--in particular words that one rarely encounters in day-to-day usage. For instance....
lucubration, n. [< lucubrate, literally "to work by artificial light"] Nocturnal study and meditation.
(from Weird Words by Dan Clore)
Imagine my delight when I came across the following passage:
Namour turned his head and appraised the table. Tonight, fixed into his silver hair on the right side of his head, he wore a small but elegant confection of black iron, polished jet cabochons, with a single carbuncle glowing with the sultry fury of a red star: presumably the present of an admirer. With a languid step he approached the table. "Hard at your lucubrations, so I see."
(Jack Vance, Araminta Station, pg. 200, (1988)
You go, Jack! Of course, you wouldn't want (or need) to use this word in everyday conversation, but isn't it nice to know that it's there just in case you had to offer an ironic putdown to a table of literary wastrels?