29 March 2007

Compunctious

A dear friend has written a wonderful post entitled 'disambiguation'.

The post inspired me to peel walls, but the title won out by instilling a far stronger urge to go in search of words.

Do not ask how I got from A to B (or from D to S) but I offer you the following:

Skatole

Noun

A white crystalline organic compound, C9H9N, having a strong fecal odor, found naturally in feces, beets, and coal tar and used as a fixative in the manufacture of perfume.

Oh lovely.
at

7 comments:

  1. Jennifer3:43 pm

    It's going to be very difficult to eat beets now.

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  2. Ally8:05 pm

    That's me off beetroot again for the duration then.

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  3. Greg8:46 pm

    Hmm. Chanel No C9H9N, eh?

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  4. Naomi6:56 pm

    Now I can turn down offers to "smell this perfume!" with intelligent-sounding grace instead of the usual horror-stricken recoil: "oh, thank you, but I really mustn't; it's the skatole, you know."

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  5. Unknown4:57 pm

    And I used to so enjoy beetroot.
    And now I know why people say "and she doesn't pee Chanel No 5" - no, she poohs it...
    Argh.
    I guess skatole is where references to animal skat come from...?

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  6. Jennifer1:15 pm

    ::chuckles at atyllah...

    ReplyDelete
  7. rashbre7:45 pm

    I once disambiguated the Atheist on WIkipedia.

    ReplyDelete