William Wilson - Gobbledygook: A Dictionary Thats 1/3 Accurate, 2/3 Nonsense - and 100% Up to You to Decide

1. ab absurdo (ab-uhb-SIR-doh) (adv. or adj.): An argument or statement that is false because it is patently absurd. The next time you think someone is full of it, cry ab absurdo! Democrats wont raise taxes? Ab absurdo! Republicans really care about people without money? Ab absurdo!
2. capacitance (kuh-PASS-uh-tuhnts) (noun): The property of an electric nonconductor permitting energy storage as the result of electric displacement when opposite surfaces of the nonconductor are maintained at a difference of potential. The inverse of capacitance is called elastance.
3. bibliometagraphia (bib-lee-oh-met-uh-GRAPH-ee-uh) (noun): Data compiling the length of a string of words a person has read, based on page count, book size, and other factors. The words roots are Greek: biblion (book); graphos (to write). Libraries use this data to make decisions about purchases; determining, for example, if a book should be in the circulating or in the reference library.

Although you might think it would be useful for libraries to have some idea of how many words the average reader goes through in a given year, theres no such word as BIBLIOMETAGRAPHIA. Libraries make decisions about whether a book should circulate based on the condition and rarity of the book, its cost to the library, how often its consulted by users, and other factors. Sadly, though, how many words the average reader reads isnt one of the metrics in deciding this.

Speedy Reader

Howard Stephen Berg claims the record for the fastest reader in the world. According to Guinness Book of World Records, Berg clocks in at 80 pages or approximately 25,000 words per minute. However, he admits that at this speed he only gets the general concepts and not the details of what he reads. In a televised test, however, Berg only managed about 30 pages or 5,500 words a minute. Still, even at that reduced pace, Berg would be able to speed-read the King James Bible (783,137 words) in about 142 minutesor two-and-a-half hours.

1. delatynite (duh-LAT-uh-night) (noun): Sulfur-lacking amber, high in carbon, found at Delatyn in the Carpathian mountains of Galicia. Galicia, for those of you who are a bit shaky on geography, is part of the Ukraine. The town of Delatyn was at various points passed back and forth between Poland, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Soviet Union.
2. scrapulous (SCRAP-yuh-luss) (adj.): Coming from an Old Norse root meaning scrape, scrapulous describes jagged and uneven surfaces likely to cause injury to the unsuspecting. The word was first used by James Boswell in his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides : Outside Dundee we climbed a small mountainside, Dr. Johnson commenting much upon the scrapulous character of the rocks.