the worthless word for the day is: ostrobogulous
[attributed to Victor B. Neuburg, British writer]
/OS tro BOG ju lus/
chiefly humorous slightly risqué or indecent; bizarre,
interesting, or unusual
hence, ostrobogulation and ostrobogulatory (see
Ostrobogulous Pigs, by A. Graves)
"It was sick, dirty, or more precisely, 'ostrobogulous',
which according to Victor Neuburg.. meant etymologically
full of (Latin, ulus) rich (Greek, ostro) dirt
(schoolboy, bog)."
- Times Lit. Suppl. 27 July 1973
"'Ostrobogulous' was Vickybird's favourite word. It stood
for anything from the bawdy to the slightly off-colour.
Any double entendre that might otherwise have escaped his
audience was prefaced by, 'if you will pardon the
ostrobogulosity'."
- Arthur Calder-Marshall, The Magic of My Youth (1951)
"A tissue of ostrobogulous lies, he calls them. With the
writer laughing behind each page at the reader's gulli-
bility, and no one else in this dead, dead town reads,
except for Mrs. Pomeroy, and all she reads is
Anne Bradstreet!"
- Charles Johnson, Oxherding Tale (1982)
