Foyle's Philavery: A Treasury of Unusual Words

You get exactly what is described in the product information and the result is great! Soon your whole vocabulary may start growing stranger and stranger. You may even lose touch with your life-long friends. Who cares? This is a super fun way to go!

Christopher Foyle took over the family book store in 1999 after 30 years in the air freight business. He remembers for BNET: "I first began to collect words which I considered to be of 'uncommon usage' at the time of the first Gulf War, in 1991, after General Norman Schwarzkopf described information which he considered to be of little or no value as 'bovine scatology'. Although I was familiar with the word 'bovine', I had to find the meaning of 'scatology'." He has collected several hundred of his favorites in Foyle's Philavery. "It is not a dictionary, just a collection. I find my words in a variety of places. I take six newspapers a day: five British broadsheets and the 'International Herald Tribune'. Having read one of them, I skim the news pages of the others and mostly concentrate on the editorials, letters, opinion and comments sections. These, together with 'The Economist', 'The Spectator' and specialist periodicals, provide a steady stream of unusual words." "Philavery" is "a term coined by my mother-in-law during a game of Scrabble. [It is] loosely constructed from Greek phileein ('to love') and Latin verbum ('a word'). The recommended pronunciation is 'fil-a-vuh-ri', with the stress on the second syllable." There are many treasures here, and his favorite word resonates with cynics like this reviewer: "kakistocracy", a system of government where the rulers are the least competent, least qualified or most unprincipled citizens. Others that tickled me include: "Comiconomenclaturist", someone who studies funny personal names. "Nudnik", Yiddish for a boring or pestering person. "Haptodysphoria", an unpleasant sensation experienced in response to certain tactile situations. Foyle adds: "During the compilation of this collection I have come across haptodysphorics who experience extreme reactions to anything from kiwi fruit and jelly to hamsters and old forks." "Groak", to stare longingly at someone who is eating. "This is an ancient art still widely and ably practised by pet dogs everywhere." "Ophiolatry", the worship of snakes. "Triskaidekaphobia", a terror of the number 13. "Limicolous", an adjective for living in mud. "Kalopsia", a condition in which things appear more beautiful than they really are. "Derived from the Greek terms kallos, meaning "beautiful", and opsis, meaning "sight", this might be a suitable word to remember when we wonder at our friends' and relations' new partner, their irksome children or even their smelly and incontinent yet beloved old pet." "Aprosexia", an abnormal inability to pay attention, often characterised by a lack of interest in anything. "CA term which sounds like it was invented for use by parents of some teenagers." "Dangleation", dallying with girls, flirtation. "CA pleasingly suggestive term which has sadly fallen into disuse in modern times, although the concept certainly remains very much alive. Flirtatious and womanising men were known as "danglers" and were particularly active at court

This is great fun for those who are interested in unusual words, even though there is, I think, a slight padding out. By my reckoning at least, some ten words out of the 105 listed here beginning with the letter A are not really all that unusual. But this must be a somewhat subjective judgment. Some 73 of the words under A I had never come across, and that's a pretty good score for this beautifully produced book. Would make a lovely present for a philaveryphile!