Fwd: A.Word.A.Day--smellfungus

[Dave Monroe]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wordsmith <wsmith at wordsmith.org>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 00:04:24 -0400
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--smellfungus
To: against.the.dave at gmail.com

This week's theme: Eponyms

smellfungus (smel-FUNG-uhs) noun

   A habitual faultfinder or complainer.

[After Smelfungus, a hypercritical character in Laurence Sterne's 1768
novel, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Earliest documented
use: 1807.]

Tobias Smollett, inspiration behind Smellfungus
http://wordsmith.org/words/smellfungus_large.jpg
Art: Nathaniel Dance-Holland, ca. 1764

NOTES: Novelist Laurence Sterne modeled his character Smelfungus after
traveler and author Tobias Smollett who complained about almost everything
in his 1766 travel book Travels through France and Italy. Here's how Sterne
describes Smelfungus:

"The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, from Paris to
 Rome, and so on; but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every
 object he pass'd by was discoloured or distorted. He wrote an account of
 them, but 'twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings."

  "And a couple of smellfungus from the Official Paper ... carped that
   Issel chose to jump when the schedule reached its toughest stretch."
   Paige Woody; Issel is the Wrong Scapegoat in Nuggets' Mess;
   Denver Post; Feb 13, 1995.

............................................................................
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with
diligence. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

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Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/smellfungus.mp3

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