7. Misocania. This is one of those words for a mania that doesn’t end with the suffix mania, and that makes it an excellent candidate for a limerick:
There was an old man from Lithuania
Who once heard the word “misocania”
He hated that word
T’was a word he’d not heard;
Misocania was plainly his mania.
Misocania is the obsessive hatred of anything new or strange, such as – in the case of the old Lithuanian – any word he didn’t know.
8. Philalethe. You can get a sense of the meaning of this word if you know that, in Greek mythology, the Lethe was one of the several rivers of Hades. Now, I seem to remember that something happened to those who drank the waters of the Lethe, but I’m damned if I can recall what it was.
A philalethe is a what?
I’d define the word in a shot,
If I knew what it meant,
But despite my intent,
I’m afraid that I went and forgot.
A philalethe isn’t just someone who forgets things, it’s someone who does so with great enthusiasm. It’s someone who loves forgetting.
9. Extropian: I like this word because I genuinely am an extropian, but I never realized there was a word for this philosophical position until I started sifting through reams of obscure words to find ones that might fit in limericks.
I do not deny entropy.
That some systems decay, I can see,
But I’m clearly not sure
About that Second Law,
And that makes an extropian of me.
By definition, an extropian is someone who adheres to the theory of extropy; that cultural and technological development tends to oppose, and will overcome, entropy. Extropians, by and large, have great confidence in human intelligence and its apparent ability to help us collectively evolve and wrestle with the natural entropy of the universe. That may be misplaced. But the big question is; can the Second Law of Thermodynamics can be applied universally. No doubt, in isolated physical systems, entropy generally applies. But does it apply to the universe as a whole? What is the relationship between entropy and intelligence? What is the meaning of life?
If you’re expecting answers, you’re reading the wrong web page.
10. Immanence. Immanence is definitely not imminence, which means: liable to happen soon. In fact this word circles us back to the second word in this list, and the limerick it rode in on. If you’ve seen that limerick before, then you’ll probably know that it is one of a pair. Here they are together:
There once was a man who said “God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there’s no one about in the quad.”
Dear Sir, Your astonishment’s odd
I am always about in the quad
And that’s why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
God.
The good Mr Knox is simply pointing out the immanence or omnipresence of God. Immanence might be thought of as synonymous with the word omnipresence, but the meaning is slightly different. An omnipresent God will doubtless be “always about in the quad” whereas an immanent God is not merely present in the quad, but actually inhabits or pervades the fabric of the quad. Either way these two limericks are not amphigories, they are reasonable objections to the philosophical ideas proposed by Bishop Berkeley.
10 IT Words That You Don’t Know
10 Collective Nouns That You Don’t Know
10 Words You Don’t Know That Shouldn’t Exist
10 Indiana Jones Words You Don’t Know
10 Words I Predict You Don’t Know
Click here for the full list: Words You Dont Know
Click here to BUY the book: Words You Don’t Know on Amazon
~ Mark Twain
