Zamboozee's definitions

Furball

A tightly packed mass of hair regurgitated by a cat or other feline, or a dog, or an other hairy mammal, that comes from it licking itself all day long because it likes to do it, preferably while people are watching. In humans this behaviour has a scientific name, but it still does not make it any less disgusting.

A middle aged balding man with astigmatism and a sinister squint walks into a doctor’s surgery one day and says to the receptionist, “Well Doc. I puked up this massive hairball from my stomach this morning, straight after breakfast, I guess that this means you think I should stop eating my hair them?” Needless to say the receptionist was none too pleased at hearing this news about a man producing a furball for breakfast, not least because she had just came back from lunch.

by Zamboozee April 13, 2011

Prediscoverer

One who has discovered something important to him before someone else had done so, who had subsequently rediscovered it later on in the time-line but has inadvertently called it his own discovery accidentally on purpose by mistake.

Well, my friend, it was I, by virtue of being its prediscoverer, who first discovered relativity, although you seem to have gotten all the credit for doing so.

by Zamboozee March 30, 2011

Bouquiniste

A French-sounding, indeed unnecessary, word for someone who deals in second hand books, and usually being ones of an obscure or pedantic nature.

Ah, the joy of travelling to Paris to find a bouquiniste, it beats popping down to Cecil Court to find an obscure book on cartography anytime.

by Zamboozee April 13, 2011

Gymnopaedia

A yearly get together promoted by a load of ancient Spartans to peruse the equality of their youth, by allowing them to parade their prowess before them through the formalization of pederastic pedagogy via the medium of dancing; or, alternatively, a kinky Greek word not actually meaning the morbid fear of gyms, but it is quite close to being so, and which originally probably came about by knowing too much about what happens to young men in them.

Let’s go to the Gymnopaedia, you and I, it’s a good day to heckle those old men ogling the young men there, and teach them a lesson they’ll never forget, and with luck we’ll be able to ogle a few young women as well while we’re at it, just for good measure.

by Zamboozee April 18, 2011

Officionardo

Somebody who does not completely lord it over all he surveys at the workplace or at a social gathering, but who would like to, he being a sort of “straw-boss” of officious ceremonies or, if not that exactly, something quite close to being so.

I do believe that you’re a bit of an officionardo. I’ve met your kind before, especially in the local Borough Council where you like to stamp every form in sight with a big red stamp and then shove it in the files somewhere, never to be see again.

by Zamboozee May 28, 2011

Bottleism

A way of doing something worthwhile for oneself regardless of the consequences, despite running the risk of being ignored by all and sundry as a result.

Without bottleism, my boy, you're nobody, and it is better by far to have a bit of bottle in you and to be somebody, than not to ever have any bottle at all and to bottle out of life altogether, and so risk being accused by your peers of never having lived.

by Zamboozee May 28, 2011

Death

The naturally holistic remedy for living popularly seen by most people as being a life-changing event not quite being the opposite of life, but very close to it; or, perhaps more relevantly, some strange metaphysical event to do with the even stranger metaphysical event of being born that, as a consequence, cannot possibly be avoided and so is preferably something to be kept at arm’s length as long as possible, or until it is too late to be avoided anyway.

It is not the concept of death per se that is the problem, it is the knowing that one is dead after one is dead, so to speak, either in heaven or hell, or elsewhere, that can really keep you up at night with insomnia, dead or alive.

by Zamboozee April 13, 2011