Skookum Pukka Stotting Bosh

Friday, February 04, 2005

I'm currently reading the Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams, a collection of little essays and thoughts, sprinkled throughout his career. It's my first dip into his Universe, and it's quite a nice little surprise...he's quite the wordsmith, wordbender, syllable thunker, automat the feeling kind of writer. He wrote a short book, called the Meaning of Liff, where a selection of new word inventions are used to describe rather unusual and selective human experiences..."shoeburyness" for when you sit in a seat still warm from someone else's bottom.

In the book, he tells the story of two dogs, a poodle and a mutt, who accompany him on walks, only to ignore his presence. It is in that story that he presents this word "stotting."

"Stotting" is jumping upwards on four legs simultaneously. My advice: do not die until you have seen a large poodle "stotting" in the snow.

Stumbling upon that, around 6pm, along with today's word of the day, pukka (first rate), skookum (impressive) and bosh (nonsense), within a span of 12 minutes, produced a tsunami of joy and relief in my weak and hollow bosom. A warm penguin's egg sitting on top of clawed feet and underneath the roll of fat on its mummy's tummy... a drunken friar's bottom. The english language, is indeed a pukka skookum thing, coruscating darkly in the crepuscule of our civilization.