Whatchamacallit!!

Just yesterday, I was reading Readers Digest to kill time somehow. While I was reading, I read a very interesting portion there. It’s about names of things which most people are not familiar yet. Names that I think only dictionary editors know because they are very difficult to understand and not known at large people. I just want to share to you what I just read. I thought you ought to know them too.

Aglet-the little plastic of your shoelace is an aglet. When your aglet breaks, it’s tough to get the end of the lace to go through the hole.

Anatomical Snuffbox-you have two of these. It’s the hollow that is formed by the meeting of the tendons at the back of the hand and the base of the thumb.

Berm-when you’re digging a hole, you shovel the dirt into a pile next to the hole right? The space between the pile and the hole is the berm. Really.

Bollard-The little post you wind a boat’s rope around to tether the boat to the dock is a bollard. The same name is applied to the post in a row in the supermarket parking lot that are spaced wide enough to walk through but too close to it your shopping cart through.

Calk-Look closely at a horseshoe and you’ll see it has small things that stick out on the bottom so the horse won’t slip and break in a leg. Horses don’t know what they’re called either. They are called calks.

Cissing- When wet varnish separates into spots and streaks so part of what you’re varnishing doesn’t get covered at all, that is cissing.

Dottle- If you smoke a pipe, you are familiar with this. It is the half smoked tobacco you have to keep cleaning out of the bowl.

Duff- The decaying leaves, pin needles and weeds all over the ground in the forest. Duff is something like dottle on a large scale, only it usually smells better.

Flews- In case you never noticed, some dogs have big heavy flaps on the sides of their mouths, which are often covered with saliva. The flaps are called flews.

Harp- That metal thing holding a lampshade on a lamp. Sometimes you have to fiddle with the harp when you change a bulb.

Kerf- The slit you make when you start to saw a piece of wood. As you keep sawing, the kerf gets bigger and bigger until it disappear and you have two pieces of wood.

Kick- That’s the indentation in the bottom of a wine bottle. It’s supposed to add strength to the glass. It also makes looks as if it holds more than it does.

Philtrum- The vertical indentation in the space above your upper lip. For those with mustaches, it separates the left half from the right. For the rest of us, it doesn’t do much at all.

Pintle- An upright pin that a door hinge slips over and turns on. It takes two pintles to make the door swing.

Schizocarp- You probably played with the schizocarps when you were a kid, but didn’t know it. Those winged things from maple trees that you put on your nose and that spin like pinwheels when you toss them into the wind are schizocarps.

Snath- The handle of a scythe. If you break it, you are in trouble. How would you like to have to call hardware store and ask, “Do you sell scythe snaths, sir?”

Snood- The fleshy growth on a turkey’s face that helps makes him so ugly. It is hard to look good with a snood in your face.

Tang- The thin end of a knife blade that fits into the handle.

Zarf- Believe it or not, a zarf is a holder for a handless coffee cup.

Dingbat- See those cute little typesetter’s marks to the left of each bold face word in this article? They are dingbats. How about that?

So did you find those words funny and obscure?I just hope that I have contributed something in your knowledge now.I guess o you know a zarf from a dingbat.It is also nice to know some mind-expanding new words.Well,it pays to be a wide reader...