octothorpe, noun = # The literal meaning of this word is “eight fields”: thorpe comes from the Old Norse for village, farm or hamlet, and octo means eight. In cartography it’s used as a symbol for villages: eight fields around a central square. Other names for this symbol include hash, numeral sign, number sign, pound sign and crosshatch.

There’s more information and the names of this symbol in various other languages on Wikipedia

interrobang, noun = ‽ – a little-used symbol that combines the question mark and exclamation mark.

These words came up yesterday on Word of Mouth, BBC Radio 4’s programme about words and language, when they discussed some of the unusual names for symbols like #, @, & and !. Other names they mentioned included screamer or bang for the exclamation mark (!), monkey’s tail, snail or elephant (in languages other than English) for the @ sign, bithorpe for the hyphen (-) and quadrothorpe for the equals sign (=).

You can listen to Word of Mouth on the BBC website

Do you have any interesting/poetic names for these or other symbols?

brachiate, adjective = having widely divergent paired branches; verb = to swing by the arms from one hold to the next

Origin: from Latin bracchiātus – with armlike branches.

Here’s another interesting word from Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale” – he mentions it while discussion the astounding acrobatic abilities of gibbons, and speculating whether our evolutionary ancestors were brachiators.

Related words
brachium, noun = arm or wing. From Latin bracchium – arm, from Greek βραχίον (brakhiōn) – arm
brachial, adjective = of or relating to the arm or am armlike structure
brace, noun = something that steadies, binds, or holds up something else
braces (UK) = suspenders (US)
bracelet
bracer, noun = a leather guard worn to protect the arm in archery and fencing

It’s also interesting to see how the Latin word bracchium has changed in Latin’s daughter languages:

Italian – braccio
Spanish – brazo
Portuguese – braço
Catalan – braç
French – bras
Romanian – braţ
Rumantsch – bratsch

The Welsh word for arm, braich, also appears to come from the same root.

The English word arm comes from Old English, and is related to the German Arm, Old Norse armr (arm), Latin armus (shoulder) and Greek harmos (joint).

proboscitude, adjective = the condition of having a long flexible prehensile trunk.

From proboscis, noun = a long flexible prehensile trunk or snount, as of an elephant; the elongated mouthparts of cetain insects, adapted for piercing and sucking food

Origin: via Latin from Greek προβοσκις (proboskis) – trunk of an elephant, from βοσκειν (boskein) – to feed

I’ve just started reading “The Ancestor’s Tale – A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution” by Richard Dawkins. In the introduction he explains why he has chosen to tell the story of evolution starting with humans and working backwards: he says it’s natural for a human to do it this way. If an elephant was telling the tale, he or she would most likely start with elephants then look for their ancestors “on the main trunk road of evolution”. He goes on to speculate that:

“Elephant astronomers might wonder whether, on some other world, there exist alien life forms that have crossed the nasal rubicon and taken the final leap to full proboscitude.”

Proboscitude is such a wonderful word that I thought I’d share it with you.

Other English words for nose are also interesting, and include conk, hooter, schozzle and snout.

“To be nosey” or “to stick one’s nose where it doesn’t belong” are both used to describe unwelcome curiosity in the doings of others. Do the equivalent idioms in other languages involve noses? If not, are there any nose-related idioms that mean something else?