![]() It is sometimes called finger percussion, but that always sounds to me like a misadventure which might befall one while strapped to the iron bed of that ancient Greek thug blacksmith, Procrustes. In Swedish massage, tapotement is quick rhythmic tapping with the edge of the hand, a cupped hand or the tips of the fingers. For no more benevolent hermeneut exists than I. After the unfamiliar massage terms were explained, I thought it only kind to share them with any badly kneaded readers. True, most massage terms are in plain English and easily understood: the Swedish Skull-Hammer Cure, the Aztec Brain Cleaner (involves a live condor and nitric acid) and VTIT or Viking Testicular Interchange Therapy. It was as if someone had said Tomás de Torquemada, founder of the Spanish Inquisition, is dropping by the house tonight to correct a few minor office errors. Procedures like effleurage, lomi lomi, moxibustion, pétrissage and tui na entered my habitually paranoid consciousness. Several other co-workers had sworn up and down, nay averred, that several of Madame Bijou’s clientele had risen from her massage table able to walk and - yes! - still capable of extracting one-hundred dollar bills from their wallets.įorthwith a blizzard of massage terms utterly new to me perplexed my ears. No, I told a friend, my upper back pain is not due to a Bowie knife embedded in a medioscapular locus by a co-worker - in other words, no shiv in my back. I murmured a compliant eek! and with unmanly haste locked my iron chastity jockstrap. It was a spa sign that warned: Persons touching the masseuse in any way deemed inappropriate shall have the offending hand amputated by the scimitar of Abdullah, our staff eunuch. Although the saucy name in neon FLESH! promised nubile nymphets (aka jailbait) dancing to Santeria while clad in skimpy thongs and carnal indulgence unknown since Belshazzar’s Feast, all I sought was surcease from pain between my shoulder blades.Īs at the famous Babylonian orgy, ominously there suddenly appeared the writing on the wall. In a state of tremulous discomfiture did I enter Madame Bijou’s Parlour of Flesh Rearrangement. Moxibustion, effleurage, lomi lomi, pétrissage, tapotement & other massage terms With that modest caution then, I invite readers to press onward, toward the broad, sunlit uplands of enlightenment, where new words dwell. So why else am I here, if not to foist upon innocent readers the most obscure word-mosses scraped from oblivions grotto? Email response reveals that readers of my work want to expand their vocabularies. What was my aim in writing this collection of short essays about language? In each chapter I tried to select one word not merely rare, but a choice vocable that is in fact le mot recherch, a term uncommon to the point of pretentiousness. At the onset of a thunder-clap which sends a pet dachshund under grandmothers shawl, do not leap on the barbeque canopy and shout, Action stations! ![]() ![]() On the contrary, scream and run madly to retrieve the aerial infant.īut, during weather commentaries, overstatement may also be scorned. When a small child is blown away down the block towards an operating hay-baling machine, dont say, Looks like the breeze has freshened. In a chapter on avoiding tired weather words, I write Likewise disdained in weather response is understatement. Samples of the gems which glitter and await the reader inside Bill Casselmans Word Stash:Įver helpful, I offer readers handy tips not just about words but about living.
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