"We all know that scientific words need an obscure classical origin to make them sound impressvie to those who wouldn't know an idiopathic craniofacial erythema if it hit them in the face."
- Mark Forsyth
"It is much harder than you might think to show people your bottom."
"The standard modern measurement for inebriation is the Ose system. This has been considerably developed over the years, but the common medical consensus currently has jocose, verbose, morose, bellicos..."
"Thank God for modern medicine. It was not until 1905 that ergophobia (the morbid fear of returning to work) was first identified and reported in the British Medical Journal. As yet there is no known c..."
"A ham sandwich is better than nothing. Nothing is better than eternal happiness. So eternal happiness is beaten by a ham sandwich."
"If Jupiter was in the ascendant when you were born, you are of a jovial disposition; and if you're not jovial but miserable and saturnine that's a disaster, because a disaster is a dis-astro, or mispl..."
"Pot itself has nothing to do with pots and pans, but comes from the Mexican-Spanish word potiguaya, which means marijuana leaves. And marijuana is a Mexification of 'Mary Jane' for reasons that everyb..."
"A bar, as any good dictionary will tell you, is a rod of wood or iron that can be used to fasten a gate. From this came the idea of a bar as any let or hindrance that can stop you going where you want..."
"The Latin word for sausage was botulus, from which English gets two words. One of them is the lovely botuliform, which means sausage-shaped and is a more useful word than you might think. The other wo..."
"Genius, as we tend to talk about it today, is some sort of mysterious and combustible substance that burns brightly and burns out. It's the strange gift of poets and pop stars that allows them to prod..."