I posted the same thought and erased it, because I thought you'd written "Middle Ages." Maybe it would be appropriate to give our neologism an Arabic origin, vice Greek/Latin. Unfortunately, I am 99.98% illiterate in Arabic.

N.B. My last returns us to Boxing Day.

The statute you quoted gives the landowner rights to use the water, but without a special dispensation by the state, he may not restrict others from its use, provided they do not infringe on dry land that he owns. There are some exceptions. State parks occasionally restrict access to springs from do...

Apparently, some cultures consider the one-finger pointing gesture to be rude. Flight attendants are trained to use two fingers, as are Disney personnel. You're right. Our culture considers one-finger pointing to be rude. But there is no belligerence in pointing to the emergency exits on an aircraf...

I like double-digiting, too, but 1) "double digits" already has a well-known meaning, and 2) I was trying to come up with something without a hyphen, diphthong, diaresis, or anything else that makes it look, well, made-up. I also like the "diplo-" prefix meaning "double,&quo...

Yes, austral goes with boreal (from, I think, Boreus, a god representing the north wind.) I don't know if there's an opposite to septentrional. I might recognize it if I hear it. Of course, all of these north-south and east-west words predate Europe's realization of the length and breadth of the glo...

I think we should be looking for a verb form, no? I'll offer "bi-digitation," but it's so general as to be almost meaningless. Maybe "diploacromation" or "diploindication" would work, if it weren't for those double vowels. How about "diplindication?" I like it...

In Florida, the State owns anything under water. If you own significant acreage, and if a spring originates on your property, others may canoe, swim, or even walk upstream to the spring and cavort therein day or night. They may not, however, touch the riparian land adjacent to the run or the spring ...

In my haste, I misspoke <blush>. Septentrional means northern, not southern. Austral means southern. I think septentrional means northern parts of the northern hemisphere, but it may simply mean northern from one's point of reference. Austral, too (I think,) but I'm only basing this on how I've hear...

Slava has it right for a proper use. Luke has raised a few good questions that I'll investigate for us, since this is up my alley. There is a family of words that is used to express where organisms live, e.g., nidicolous - in the nests of others riparian (cf.) - along riverbanks alpine - in mountain...

That's a terrific word that I've never heard. Of course, living in Florida, rocks exist in theory only. Sand, we have more than enough; but rocks?

How would one use that metaphorically? "The young groupie spent her weekends following local bands in a rupicoline fervor."

Parseltongue

I don't think I could bring myself to eat any entree that introduces itself with the syllable, "turd." Maybe somebody will eventually develop a more appetizing name for this dish. "Melanagal" uses the first three letters of the generic names of the turkey, mallard (from which mos...

Before we knew enough about how the world works to call them the tropics, Earth's hot, equatorial regions were called the torrid zone (often pluralized as the torrid zones.)

(Sorry to flood.) Have you noticed that professional, human pointers always point with two fingers (index and middle together) nowadays? Flight attendants, when presenting their moronic safety briefings, are a good example. I think somebody has taken their mother's admonition ("it's not polite ...