On Fri, 17 Sep 2004, Scott Schultz wrote: >My nitpick for the day. A couple of people on this list have >tossed this word around now. From the context, I can figure >that it means "speculative", "conjectural", "theoretical", etc... > >Try as I might, however, I can't find any evidence that this >an actual word. Of course it's an actual word. It's got vowels and consonants and everything. It also has Latin and/or Greek roots, which means it has an ancient and thoroughly respectable pedigree. Unless you don't believe in Greek or Latin, in which case, you would probably be more comfortable in the world of "Uncleftish Beholding". >The dictionaries and thesauri at my disposal don't contain it and >the web keeps feeding me surgical websites dealing in and around >certain human orifices. And well it might. Obviously, "pararectal" has more than one meaning, as all 20-dollar words should. Did you search the list archives? [...] OK, it's not in the index. Huh. Nevertheless: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mss:10402 In a recent return to the OED, I noted that the Latin "parere" means "to produce, to bring forth". >What is this word and where does it come from? Note that the origin of this usage of the word pararectal is also pararectal. Which is highly appropriate (unlike, for example, the word "abbreviation", which is far too long). > Enquiring minds want to know. > I strongly encourage the spread and use of the phrase "pararectal ideation", and the word "pararectal" itself alone. I neither require nor desire any sort of credit. I've sort of given up hope on "ambiguifies", which caused more of a ruckus, and even inspired doggerel, but seems to have not had legs.