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.

7 comments:

Jennifer said...

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

Ally said...

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

Greg said...

Hmm. Chanel No C9H9N, eh?

Naomi said...

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."

Unknown said...

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...?

Jennifer said...

::chuckles at atyllah...

rashbre said...

I once disambiguated the Atheist on WIkipedia.