Insomniac’s Guide to World of Strange Words

Paul Hellweg knew immediately that the woman sitting across from him would be his fiancee: “It was love at first phobia.”

There they were about a year ago, sitting around a campfire at the conclusion of a backpacking trip, when she mentioned triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13).

“Not only did I know what that meant, but I countered with one of my all-time favorites, pentheraphobia (fear of one’s mother-in-law),” Hellweg recalled.

Little did Cathy Williams know that she was face to face with a logolept (word maniac). Worse yet, he was occasionally afflicted with egersis (intense sleeplessness).

3,000 Strange Words

This, in fact, is what gave rise to Hellweg’s new “The Insomniac’s Dictionary” (Facts on File Publications: $16.95, available this week), a compilation of about 3,000 strange words to fill the nocturnal time of those who prefer to get up and do something rather than fight the pillow.

Of course, it isn’t likely that citations will be issued if someone chooses instead to browse it in the daytime.

“It was, however, my own insomnia that resulted in this book,” said Hellweg, professor of recreation and leisure studies at Cal State Northridge. Words have become his avocation, and he is a contributor to Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics.

“It started 10 years ago when my parents gave me an unabridged dictionary as a Christmas gift,” he said. “I was into Scrabble at the time, and I guess they thought I would do better.

“I became like a kid in a candy shop. I sometimes couldn’t believe what I would find while browsing. In the beginning, a lot of what I came across was serendipity. I would just flip the dictionary open and see what was on the page.”

Awake All Night

It happens that the 41-year-old professor also is an insomniac--”sometimes I’m up almost all night.

“After the gift from my parents, I began collecting dictionaries (he now has more than 100). When I couldn’t sleep, I would sit in my easy chair, puff my pipe and read them.”

Not that counting vowels had the beneficial effects of counting sheep. “I would get so excited at my discoveries that the effect was the reverse of making me sleepy,” the author said.

In time, as he discovered such words as gynotikolobomassophile (someone who likes to nibble on a woman’s earlobes), what had begun as random fun became a systematic search through his various dictionaries.

“I noticed that the (interesting) words were falling into categories, such as manias, phobias, collective nouns for animals, two-letter words, ‘Q’ words without the ‘U,’ and just plain delightful words,” Hellweg said. “I realized I was putting together the kind of book I would have wanted to read while awaiting sleep.” Ah, the wonderful world of tachyphagia (extremely fast eating), pingle (to eat with little or no appetite), prosopagnosis (loss of memory for faces), and gargalesthesia (the sensation caused by tickling).

To say nothing of kakistocracy (government by the worst citizens), bruxomania (compulsive grinding of one’s teeth) and snurp (to become shriveled or wrinkled).

“During my research, I found that notables figured in some words,” Hellweg disclosed. “For instance, Prince Philip coined ‘dontopedalogy, ‘ which is an aptitude for putting one’s foot in one’s mouth.”

Slices of Bread

Indeed, the association of certain people with certain words takes up a chapter in the book. The author recalls the Wizard of Id comic strip in which the character called the King wondered what it would be like if someone named Farnsworth--instead of the Earl of Sandwich--had been credited with the idea of placing food between slices of bread. “Would you make yourself a salami farnsworth?” Hellweg wondered aloud.

“Or,” he continued, “what if E. C. Benedict and James J. Salisbury had different tastes? Would you eat eggs salisbury or benedict steak?”

The list of eponyms (persons for whom something is named) admittedly comes nowhere near the 20,000 in our language, but it does include (for foods) Russian Count Paul Stroganoff and Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, and (for other categories) Texas cattleman Samuel Maverick, French aerial gymnast Jules Leotard, and English artillery officer Henry Shrapnel.

An insomniac’s dictionary, of course, wouldn’t be complete without organization acronyms, such as SUCKER (Society for Understanding Cats, Kangaroos, Elks and Reptiles); palindromes (something that reads the same backward or forward) such as “Madam, I’m Adam, and Was it a car or a cat I saw?”

Pangrams (a sentence, preferably short, that contains all the letters of the alphabet) such as “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs”; two-letter words from Ai (a three-clawed sloth) to Zo (Asian cattle); a word found in “Chemical Abstracts” and containing 1,185 letters (which you will be spared)--all are included.

“Regarding acronyms (formed from the initial letter or letters of the major parts of a phrase), ‘snafu’ is an interesting case,” the professor said. “It stands for ‘Situation Normal, All Fouled Up,’ and originated with the military. But now it has general usage and is an uncapitalized entry in most dictionaries.”

Perhaps the professor didn’t finish writing the novel he said he started at age 7 while growing up in Illinois, but he has made up for it. “Even with everything that has come along, people are as interested as ever in words,” he said. “Look at the continuing popularity of crossword puzzles, Scrabble, and the other word games.” (And, in another testament to Hellweg’s instincts, he and Cathy Williams plan to marry sometime this year.)

An Unusual Stew

What he hath concocted is an unusual stew, something for every taste, thanks in no small part to used book stores. “For years I have haunted them,” Hellweg confessed.

“You may not be easily persuaded, but all my entries are real. Some probably aren’t found in your personal dictionaries, but all have been accepted by at least one significant reference work.”

Thus one becomes privy to collective nouns for animals. Most of us know that lions congregate in a pride and fish in a school, but how about a crash of rhinoceroses, a shrewdness of apes, a pitying of turtledoves, an unkindness of ravens, a labor of moles, a murder of crows?

“The one I like is the exaltation of larks,” the author said. “In fact, that became the title of a mystery book.”

On it goes, with no mercy, no taking of prisoners, certainly no excuses for pandiculation (the act of stretching and yawning).

Time for a Sequel

“And since I still have insomnia, there is plenty opportunity to work on a sequel,” Hellweg said.

“I guess my favorite part, the heart of this book, is the section on 555 phobias,” he concluded. “Our language is replete with human frailties, and it is kind of encouraging to realize that other people may be in the same boat as you.”

It is entirely possible that, given today’s society, you are a pantophobe (someone who fears everything).

Or, on the other hand, you may just be suffering from arachibutyrophobia .

That is fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.