Gliderry Embranglement of Mephitic Weasels

1809 Plate from Zoological Lectures by George Shaw

I love words.  I have been known to spend an hour scrutinizing Roget's looking for the precise noun, verb, or adjective to convey exactly what I mean.  Mental Floss blogged about "25 Smart Synonyms You Should Be Using."

Some of my favorite are mephitic defined as "a noxious, foul-smelling fume emanating from inside the earth,.....Case in point, skunks were known as "mephitic weasels" is the 19th century."

Nipcheese is "a ship's purser (the steward in charge of the ship's accounts),..... a mean, penny-pinching person."

"A brangle is a squabble or a noisy argument, while to embrangle someone is to throw them into a quandary or to utterly perplex them. An
                                                                                    embranglement, likewise, is a tricky, confusing situation."




Enjoy the remaining 23 words at the link below:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/524699/25-smart-synonyms-you-should-be-using

Equus Will be Publishing my article on Equine Epistaxis

Poor Blessi!

Several years ago, Blessi experienced a nose bleed or equine epistaxis.  He was dripping gouts of blood from both nostrils.  Even though there was no swelling and Blessi seemed to be experiencing no discomfort, I called the veterinarian.  He discussed several conditions that could be causing the bleeding such as a foreign body in the nasal passage, Exercise Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage, Guttural Pouch Fungal Infection, etc.

Dr. Weeks ran an endoscope up Blessi's nasal passage to find that he was bleeding from the sigmoid area.  You should have seen the expression on his face when Dr. Weeks ran a 16 inch endoscope up the nasal passage.  Blessi was surprised for the first few seconds but then settled down to see if there was a carrot reward involved in the process.

Best diagnosis was that Blessi had had some sort of stupid pasture accident and was bleeding internally due to blunt force trauma (not a horse kick since there was no swelling around the head).  The vet was not too worried and the bleeding slowed down and stopped in a few days with no further treatment.

I wrote up what I learned about equine epistaxis in a Case Study to help other horse owners.  Equus magazine informed me yesterday that they will be publishing my article in some future edition.