Quidnunc and poppysmic…
Psst… hey you…
Yes, you.
You out there googling quidnunc and poppysmic because that silly girl played by Jennifer Aniston in the movie (people are bashing) Love Happens, happens to go around writing these words on walls and we’re supposed to think it’s endearing instead of vandalism, but you just want to know what they mean…
Yeah, you!
Here you go:
quidnunc [ˈkwɪdˌnʌŋk]
n
Source
a person eager to learn news and scandal; gossipmonger
[from Latin, literally: what now]
POPPYSMIC/pɒˈpɪzmɪk/
Produced with smacking of the lips.
Source
You won’t see this in your local newspaper any day soon. It comes from the Latin poppysma, via the defunct French popisme. Romans used the original for a kind of lip-smacking, clucking noise that signified satisfaction and approval, especially during lovemaking. In French, it referred to the tongue-clicking tsk-tsk sound that riders use to encourage their mounts. The only writer in English known to have used our word was James Joyce, in a stage direction in Ulysses: “FLORRY WHISPERS TO HER. WHISPERING LOVEWORDS MURMUR, LIPLAPPING LOUDLY, POPPYSMIC PLOPSLOP.”
You’re welcome.
I know now we can all sleep better at night.
Hello. There was another word by Eckhart that was mentioned in the movie, something about a person writing/ speaking strange words.. i have no idea how to spell it, it’d be nice if you could put it up too. Thanks! =)
@Dawn, the other word was ’sesquipedalianist’. It means a person who loves to use long and unusual words.
Thanks for the heads up Tweedledee!
actually ive been looking for that word too. ever since i saw this movie i became addicted to long and interesting words!!
The internet sure does make having odd hobbies a lot easier, doesn’t it?
I loves my internet!
How did he find the word poppysmic so easily? The other two words were readily available in your average dictionary, but poppysmic isn’t even recognized as a real word in most dictionaries or spell-checkers.
I think it’s rather disheartening. Here, I thought there was a whole world of cool words that included poppysmic, come to find, the movie pulled that onomatopoeia from an ancient (apparently French) etymology.
Very simple, because it looked for the word in google and not in a dictionary. Sorry my English, I am not. ;D