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A wide vocabulary allows precision, but this paragraph is ridiculous

Fascinated as I am with vocabulary, I relished this paragraph. It comes from a book by Laurance Urdang, a word-lover who died recently and was eulogized in the NY Times, Aug. 26, 2008 at C10 (See my post of Aug. 12, 2008: unusual vocabulary on this blog.).

“This is not a succedaneum for satisfying the nympholepsy of nullifadians. Rather it is hope that the haecceity of this enchiridion of arcane and recondite sesquipedalian items will appeal to the oniomania of an eximious Gemeinschaft whose legerity and sophrosyne, whose Sprachgefühl and orexis will find more than fugacious fulfillment among its felicific pages.”

But of course.

My spell checker shouts at me for nine words in that rare collection. More amazing is that it accepts four or five words that are far, far out on the long tail of English vocabulary.

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