Weird Turn-ons

I was sitting at work reading Playboy's advice section and a guy wrote in saying that he was an acousticophile- he gets turned when he hears women walking in high heels, he can even have a spontaneous orgasm if a certain pair sounds especially appealing. Imagine that!

So I looked up other odd turn-ons:
pogonophilia: love of beards
klismaphilia: feeling pleasure from enemas
gynotikolobomassophilia: love of biting female earlobes
ecdysiophilia: love of watching people strip
acrotomophilia: love of amputees

And because there is such a fine line between love and hate, here are some phobias:
hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia: fear of the number 666
hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: fear of big words

Pro bono publico

The language of Latin en masse has been dead for centuries, yet its apparition still haunts the English language per idioms. A sentence suddenly becomes incomprehensible when disrupted by a seemingly non sequitur. If such ad hominem idioms are sine qua non, at least avoid the status quo of "per se," "vice versa," "et cetera," etc…said ad nauseam.
Carpe diem and learn some new ones!

Help me out, guys

So I've got this degree in this fancy language, but Hawaii leaves me with scant chance to use it. I've decided to give myself homework assignments: look things up on Wikipedia in said foreign language. Today I looked up "cumulus" and "bing crosby."
Give me some things to look up and help me stave off this despicable linguistic atrophy.

Regarding Marilyn Monroe

Read "A Beautiful Child," Truman Capoté's stunning, unforgettable story about MM, and you'll never see her the same way again. The story appears in his collection Music for Chameleons, a book that anyone who aspires to understand literature—or create it—should read.

Marilyn Monroe

The misconception that Marilyn Monroe was just a "dumb blonde" prevails to this day. However, if one delves into actual accounts of her conversations with various friends and reporters the truth one finds may be quite surprising. Her known "bad behavior" during filming of movies actually came down to a battle of wills between herself and patronizing directors. Being late to shootings was her way of exercising some "control over a situation in which she felt disempowered." The men around her called her a "monster" and fantasized about beating her and her arrogance into submission. She just wanted respect from these men who were difficult, egotistical, condescending, and hard to get along with, let alone please.

When Marilyn made any attempts to further her knowledge or to show the public that she wasn't just a sexual body with no intellectual aspirations she was labeled as being pretentious. No wonder she could not come to terms with her own identity. People were calling for her to abide by her sex kitten image, yet hated her for it; they wanted more substance from her, and when she gave it to them, they rejected her. She was a beautiful, lonely, misunderstood woman that wanted to be loved.

Trite salutations

I met a guy and gave him my number. He text-messaged me everyday, at least three times a day. In the mornings he would text, “Good morning;” in the evenings, “Good night;” and “How is your day?” in between. These messages cost money to receive, five cents a message! So, finally, I text-messaged the following: “You’re sweet, but if you’re going to text me please send me messages with more substance and content instead of these trite salutations. =) Thanks!” He did not respond and I felt guilty that I might have offended him with my snobbery. Later that evening, I saw him and inquired if everything was all right. He said, “It took me two hours to figure out what ‘trite’ means; then another hour for ‘trite salutations.’”

Why didn't he just refer to the dictionary? I have no idea.

trite ('trIt) adj. hackneyed or boring from much use; not fresh or original
salutation ("sal-y&-'tA-sh&n) n. an expression of greeting, goodwill, or courtesy by word, gesture, or ceremony

Philology

Every time I mention that I am an English major, I get the Oh!-how-unfortunate look followed by, “What are you going to do with that after college? Teach?” The response, my fellow English students, is: “I am going to be a philologist!” Say this with enthusiasm and conviction, and shut your inquisitor up, once and for all.

philology (f&-'lä-l&-jE) n. the study of literature and of disciplines relevant to literature or to language as used in literature.