After reflecting on the importance of vocabulary enhancement, Word Nymph has declared this Enhance Your Vocabulary Week.
She has consulted one of her favorite sources, The Highly Selective Dictionary for the Extraordinarily Literate by Eugene Ehrlich and is pleased to share Monday’s selection:
Defenestration: The act of throwing a thing or person out of a window
Can you use it in a sentence three times today? If so, it’s yours.
Happy Birthday Dad!
Word Nymph 
Assume you have a copy of “Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words,” by Josefa Heifetz Byrne. It is, sadly, out of print, but Amazon has used copies for sale. Where else would I have stumbled across “hircine” or such members of the SNAFU family as FUMTU, TARFU, SUSFU, JANFU, FUBAR, et al?
Why no, I don’t. Will have to track it down if I am to stay in business, or whatever this is. I am dying to know FUMTU, TARFU, SUSFU, JANFU, FUBAR.
Well, assuming you know what the “FU” part is….
FUMTU – FU more than usual
TARFU – things are really FU
SUSFU – situation unchanged — still FU
JANFU – joint army/navy FU
FUBAR – FU beyond all recognition
… and I forgot
FUBB – FU beyond belief.
If it counts, I have used each of these at least three times in official documents.
Will I do time for the defenestration of my children?
Happy Birthday, Mark.
It was about this time of year in 1972, when I first heard your famous line: “Unity! Unity in the Democratic Party! That’s like the Pope calling for an orgy in the College of Cardinals…”. Like an earworm, this saying plays again and again every election year in my head. Time for political defenestration, eh?
Is it wrong of me to admit that I have had recent fantasies of defenestration?