CarrollBlog

Although I don't use them, I have a soft spot for huge obscure words that mean only one weird thing nobody ever does or thinks about. For example, I read an article the other day about the Pentecostal Church and how many of the members believe in "glossolalia," or the speaking in tongues. Another taste treat from the same article, was "xenoglossy" which is the sudden ability to speak in foreign tongues you never knew before. When I read that, I lit right up because that's exactly what happened to Harry Radcliffe in OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM. Hot Damn, if I only knew then there was an actual dictionary word for that phenomena! There are numerous websites on the internet that list hundreds of tongue staggering, multisyllabic, use it once in a lifetime words. There are even some writers, like the great Alexander Theroux and SJ Perelman, who actually used them in their work. But to me no matter what these words mean, they're all vaguely funny. Even stranger or funnier (I can't decide which) are the people who create the words to fit the things. How the hell did they ever come up with "xenoglossy"? I'm sure there are perfectly logical prefix and suffix reasons, but still I picture some guy behind a huge pile of books in a dusty chamber somewhere scratching his sparse hair with a well used pencil, narrowing his eyes while thinking, "And what about the person who's suddenly able to speak in foreign tongues? What do we call THAT phenomena?" Rubbing his hands gleefully together, he dives head first back into the wild sea of unborn words to create something suitable.