Lex Mix Pix

I recently received, from my brother, for my birthday, or possibly Christmas (they're only a week apart), The Lexicon: a cornucopia of wonderful words for the inquisitive word lover by William F. Buckley Jr.

Here's a random sampling, followed by the results of a self-imposed challenge beforehand: a spontaneous, rapid-fire attempt to use all the words in one sentence (more or less correctly).

eleemosynary (adjective) -- Of or relating to charity.

nescient (adjective) -- From nescience, the doctrine that nothing is truly knowable.

periphrastic (adjective) -- Ornately long-winded; given to profuse formulations.

congeries (noun) -- A collection; accumulation; aggregation.

bumptiousness (noun) -- The quality of one who is presumptuously, obtusely, and often nosily self-assertive.

breviary (noun) -- An ecclesiastical book containing the daily prayers or canonical prayers for the canonical hours.

indite (verb) -- To write, compose; to set down in writing.

raillery (noun) -- good-natured ridicule; pleasantry touched with satire; banter, chaffing, mockery.

traduce (verb) -- To lower or disgrace the reputation of; expose to shame or blame by utterance of falsehood or misrepresentation.


I may have indicted myself by attempting to indite a grammatically correct sentence in one periphrastic sitting using this entire congeries of words, an effort that in retrospect may have been enhanced by praying from a breviary and calling upon the eleemosynary qualities of a divine power so as not to invite rampant raillery by having traduced the rules of syntax and etiquette elicited by my bumptiousness and nescient arrogance.

(That took about four minutes, such as it was.)