• oocephalus •
Pronunciation: Oh-oh! sef-ê-lês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: An egghead, a person or animal with an egg-like head.
Notes: You might have noticed that we like to explore scientific language for words needed in our everyday conversation. Egghead has taken on such a pejorative sense, we need to find a more civil term for the concept. Oocephalus seems appropriate since only egg-heads (that is, oocephali) will understand it. Notice that booth Os are pronounced: not like oo in kook but like the interjection for an accident, "Oh-oh!". "Having an egg-like head" is pronounced the same way as the noun but is spelled oocephalous. You may use oocephali or oocephaluses as a plural (oocephali prefer the former).
In Play: We have been trying to encourage less offensive speech and even if this word is not less offensive, at least it is less comprehensible: "The R. Cain I know is a nerdy oocephalus who spends all his time in the library collecting dust like the books there." We replace the fun of the insult with the fun of pronouncing this word: "Some oocephalus who has never done real work wrote the safety rules requiring (1) a construction vehicle to make an audible signal when it backs up and (2) all workmen wear earplugs on construction sites."
Word History: This Good Word is a medical creation from Greek oion "egg" + kephale "head" and a Latin suffix. Oion came from the Proto-Indo-Europeanroot awi "bird", which also underlies Lavin avis "bird", origin of English avian and aviary. Modern Persian (Farsi), spoken in Iran, is also an Indo-European language distantly related to English. The Old Iranian word for "egg" was something like avya, which underwent several changes before it was borrowed into Turkish as havyar. This word was borrowed by English as caviar, the name of those salty fish eggs with the even saltier price.
OOCEPHALUS
- Dr. Goodword
- Site Admin
- Posts: 7417
- Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
- Location: Lewisburg, PA
- Contact:
OOCEPHALUS
• The Good Dr. Goodword
-
- Lexiterian
- Posts: 457
- Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:48 am
- Location: Cambridge, Mass
- Contact:
Humpty Dumpty
So what do you call a person or critter that has an egg shaped body? Like Humpty Dumpty, before his great fall. Or could be just call him an oocephalus anyway?
EBERNTSON
Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more,
and all good things will be yours.
--R. Burns
Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more,
and all good things will be yours.
--R. Burns
-
- Lexiterian
- Posts: 457
- Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:48 am
- Location: Cambridge, Mass
- Contact:
... a crack head!?
Last edited by eberntson on Wed Nov 07, 2007 4:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
EBERNTSON
Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more,
and all good things will be yours.
--R. Burns
Fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more,
and all good things will be yours.
--R. Burns
Return to “Good Word Discussion”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 44 guests