Toronto's garbage strike is only in its third day and already the whiff of refuse is in the air downtown. As I tried to put a name to the particular stench that was wafting down Bay Street, I was reminded of Ammon Shea's book from last summer, Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. He introduced me to the word "quisquilious." It means either "to be concerned with worthless things," or "of the nature of refuse." Its root is the Latin word for garbage: "quisquiliae."
Shea rhetorically asked why we have ugly words for some beautiful things and beautiful words for some ugly things. Today I feel I'm closer to learning why. Because when your world literally stinks, sometimes a sonorous word makes it just a bit more bearable.
So next time you have to plug your nose when you go outside, don't fret about the "trash," the "swill," and the "slop." Monosyllables are for real problems (like "death"). One needn't concern oneself with something so quisquilious.
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