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Sunday 14 October 2012

Sunday Rest: Word Not To Use Today: unguent.

Unguent.

You can practically hear the grease and gunge oozing out of this horrible word.

An unguent is a sort of cream designed to be rubbed into the skin. Fortunately the word unguent isn't used nearly as often as cream because an unguent is nearly an aid to beauty and hardly ever a medicine.

The mere greasy sound of unguent brings to mind old, mad, wrinkly, desperate women.

Non-desperate sane women will, of course, use an enticing lotion or cream.

Word Not To Use Today: unguent. The word unguent comes (and how I wish it hadn't) from the Latin word unguere, which means to annoint.



This unguent jar comes from King Tutankamun's tomb. I suppose, now I come to think about it, a mummy would need a good face cream.

2 comments:

  1. I like to use it together with the word cream, as in "creams and unguents." It is horrid though. Spelling is enough to give you serious conniptions. Have you ever discussed that word? I could do a seach I guess...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll research conniptions, Adele, and see what I can do!

    ReplyDelete

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