50 words for today

From the BBC News website...

50 of your favourite words

Story about man who read the OED in a year
Lots of sesquipedalians out there, judging by the response to our feature on the man who reads dictionaries for fun, Ammon Shea. We asked for your favourite words and were overwhelmed with nominations. Here we list 50 of the best.

Read the rest of the article here

I have to admit at being pleased by how many of these words I actually knew. And enjoyed all the many spiffy words that were new to me. My favorite word on this list is "tintinnabulation".

One of my (many) favorite words that didn't make their list is:

uxorious
–adjective
doting upon, foolishly fond of, or affectionately submissive toward one's wife.

First one that came to mind, just randomly. Has nothing to do at all with tomorrow being my wedding anniversary, I'm sure.

I guess that makes 51 words for today.

Thundersleet

My new word for today: Thundersleet.

I read about this phenomenon in Paul Huttner's weather blog, Updraft, as something that happened yesterday in the Twin Cities Metro area. I didn't notice any of it here in my neck of the metro. But it's related to thundersnow, and according to this article in Wikipedia:

One unique aspect of thundersnow is that the snowfall acts as an acoustic suppressor of the thunder. The thunder from a typical thunderstorm can be heard many kilometers away, while the thunder from thundersnow can usually only be heard within a two to three kilometer radius from the lightning.

So if it wasn't just over our heads, I guess we wouldn't know it was happening even a relatively short distance away.

This is not something I learned about when I lived out on the Left Coast. Thundersleet. In April, no less. Welcome to the Midwest.