Happy Wednesday! This week (if you’re following my travels on a map) I am in St Paul, Minnesota, attempting to train a large group of corporate controllers on using a new software system. Go ahead, pity me – I could use it. So, as promised, more words from last week’s read, Population: 485, Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time.

1. “After determining they are superficial, with no underlying crepitus or depression to indicate an obvious cranial fracture…”

Crepitus: a medical term to describe the grating, crackling or popping sounds and sensations experienced under the skin and joints. Crepitus – and surely this will bit of knowledge will make you popular at parties – is also the (alleged) Roman god of flatulence!

2. “…through a series of night classes held in a high school library under the aegis of the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College…”

Aegis: Auspices

3. “So I commit myself to the process, which amounts to a series of grunts accreted in tedium.”

To accrete is to grow together or become attached. I’m not quite sure how he meant to use this one.

4. “I retain serious reservations about anyone who launches their day with briskness of any sort, let alone an alacritous jog.”

Alacritous: Quick and eager. Okay, now he’s just showing off. Maybe he’s afraid we’ll think he’s too much of a redneck, what with the rusted truck, the deer hunting and the carp fishing.

5. “…a solitary trumpet peal rises over the strings and fades. I find it to be unbearably plangent.”

Plangent: loud and mournful

6. “I feel the twinge and remember that for a few laps there, I was god of the Peloton.”

I include this one because it’s in the news lately, with the Tour de France. Peloton: The main group of riders formed during a cycling road race.