Sesquipedalian Words; Part 2, 17-33

Sesquipedalia Verba or
Sesquipedalians in Action

“I asked you to tell me where you’ve been all afternoon! Don’t tell
me again that you were over at Jimmy’s because I called and he said you hadn’t
been there. Now, tell me the truth!”

“Mother, do you have the audacity to doubt my veracity and to insinuate that
I prevaricate when I am as pure and undefiled as the icicles that hang from a church
steeple?”

Johnny’s mother didn’t say any more at the time because she decided to
use her vocabulary resources to prepare a proper sesquipedalian response.

“John, my son, please transport from that recumbent collection of fragmentary
combustibles to the threshold of this edifice two curtailed expressions of defunct
logs; and do it in this present tense of contiguous chronology.”

See if you can determine the meanings of these additional sesquipedialian
presentations before you click on the solutions.

  • Verba Obscura #18For none who claims to represent
    The “homo” species sapient
    Will loiter Einstein’s fourth dimension
    Or sea’s quotidian declension.

    —Hubert Phillips

Translation for Verba Obscura #18 may be found by going to Translation #18. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #19Faced with material esculent
    As source of liquid nourishment,
    Avoid excess—’twill but displease—
    Of culinary expertise.

    —Hubert Phillips

Translation for Verba Obscura #19 may be found by going to Translation #19. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #20It is fruitless to endure lacrimation over precipitately departed lacteal fluid.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #20 may be found by going to Translation #20. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #21A revolving lathic conglomerate accumulates no diminutive glaucous brophitic plants.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #21 may be found by going to Translation #21. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #22Missiles of ligneous or crystalline consistency have the potential for fracturing
    my osseous structure, but appellations will eternally be benign.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #22 may be found by going to Translation #22. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #23Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #23 may be found by going to Translation #23. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #24The stylus is more potent than the claymore.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #24 may be found by going to Translation #24. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #25Members of an avian species of identical plummage congregate.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #25 may be found by going to Translation #25. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #26Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be advised to refrain
    from catapulting petrous projectiles.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #26 may be found by going to Translation #26. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #27Exclusive dedication to necessary chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion
    renders John a hepetudinous fellow.

    —Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #27 may be found by going to Translation #27. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #28Male cadavers are incapable of yielding any testimony.—Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #28 may be found by going to Translation #28. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #29I entered the abode of the tonsorial artist to have my hirsute appendage diminished.—Unknown Source

Translation for Verba Obscura #29 may be found by going to Translation #29. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #30Verbosity and circumlocution are too often substituted today for clear, direct expression.
    What Shakespearean play title, for instance, might now be worded like this?

    “There is an ongoing viability to the aggregate of human enterprises that attain
    a terminal configuration without being adversely impacted.”

    —As seen in a Book-of-the-Month-Club pamphlet several years ago
    [date unknown].

Translation for Verba Obscura #30 may be found by going to Translation #30. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

  • Verba Obscura #31“Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific!Fain would I fathom thy nature specific,

    Distantly poised in the ether capacious,

    Closely resembling a gem carbonaceous. ”

Translation for Verba Obscura #31 may be found by going to Translation #31. Use your browser’s “back” or “return”
button to return to this list.

Back to part 1 of sesquipedalians.

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