another great word i’ll never (hopefully) get to use

Today’s word of the day on WordSpy: gossypiboma. It’s the official term for a sponge left inside a patient’s body after a surgical procedure. Because “sponge” was too obvious, apparently, for the medical profession. Probably my favorite thing about the word – aside from how fun it is to say, and the fact that it sounds more like a teenage girl’s pastime than anything hippocratic, is that its etymological roots are Latin and Swahili. There just aren’t enough words in the English language that are based on Swahili.

On a barely related tangent, Swahili is one of the many languages in which I know how to say “I love you”. For those who are curious: nakupenda sana (technically, that’s “I love you very much”, but you get the picture).

This concludes your rambling and pointless entry for today. I would have remarked on the vice-presidential debate (and, for that matter, on last week’s presidential one), but I’m ashamed to admit that I gave up watching Edwards v. Cheney last night after about ten minutes. It was going nowhere pretty, and I stand by my decision to spend that time in the kitchen, cooking and drinking wine. Besides, I do try to (except when drunk and angry at 4 in the morning) stick to my self-imposed rule of no politics in the blog is good politics in the blog. Kind of like punk. Only more annoying and self-absorbed.