Absurd Entries

[desperance]

It is my bounden duty - as it was jaylake's before me - to draw your attention to Ammon Shea's blog about Absurd Entries in the OED.

'Nuff said, really - though I do feel obliged to add that I did in fact understand disghibelline at first sight, though I'm not sure I could actually do it. And I must also point out - as ofttimes before - that my own favourite dictionary entry occurs not in the OED but in Chambers, and is (I hope) in no danger of being edited out:

éclair, n, a cake, long in shape but short in duration

[And now I really am going to bed. With Mac originally, who always comes to bed to play The Game until he feels victorious enough to drag The Fiendish Object (an increasingly shredded length of bailer-twine) off to his Lair (the hithertofore-mentioned wicker laundry basket, now reduced by assiduous chewing to about three inches all round); I expect Baz to join me later. They are cats of habit, the pair of them. Mac will spend some hours in his own bed, and then come in search of either warmth or play. Pray for a cold night; play often involves civilian casualties collateral damage, which means my bleeding from the scalp, where Barry has fled over me...]