Quilly's Three Word Challenge x Four

Quilly - over at her Pacific Paradise - I guess, felt the need of a tough mental challenge for us to chew on and she has come up with a new (well it's a few weeks old, but I was sulking in my cave so it's new for me still) word challenge. She comes up with three words we often have to look up in the dictionary and asks us to use them. It's like a mini wordzzle for braniacs. Lucky me, I missed the weeks when all three words had totally obscure meanings. This week there's was only one that left my brain whirling with the cogs not connecting. So here's what I have to say about apanthropinization; paucity & zither.

Ok... Once I got started, I decided to try and use the words from the previous weeks as well: isangelous, volvigant, cynicocratic, opprobrious, quondam, casuistry, fracas, numismatics, perspicacious Whew! I'm exhausted... but victorious!


"Harold Manglewitz, I don't know what your story is, " Miranda intoned in frustration. "I don't mean to be opprobrious, but when I married you twenty-five years ago there was no paucity of words between us. Your current state of apanthropinization is breaking my heart. You used to be interesting. Challenging. Now you just sit around all day strumming that stupid zither with a bemused look on your face like you're some angel on a cloud. Personally, I don't find you very isangelous and I miss your quondam kindness and connection to life. Now, it's more like you have become king of all the cynicocratical bastards I've ever met... and I've met too many... I know that horrible fracas at the church last year shook you to your core and I thought I'd give you time to recover. You are - or were - one of the most perspicatious people I have ever known. What you are doing - pushing everyone away and sitting here pretending to be a mystic isn't noble; it's a failure to honor your true self, a kind of pathetic casuistry that is heart-breaking and shameful both. And it's beneath you. But I see now that you aren't willing to come back to the world even for me, so I'm leaving you for Charlie Cashuary, the local numismatics expert. You may think he's just one of the volvigant masses, but at least he's alive, at least he listens to me and talks to me. I loved you so much, Harold, but you have left me and now - if I'm going to survive - I have to leave you. I hope you find peace."

Had she seen the tear that slid down Harold's cheek, Miranda might not have left, but he had turned his face in the zither. He too had made his choice.


Definitions (in no particular order)

volvigant - Of or pertaining to the uneducated masses
cynicocratical - Pertaining to or a reference to a ruling body of cynics
zither - The zither is a musical string instrument
isangelous - an obsolete word meaning equal to the angels
apanthropinization - withdrawal from human concerns or the human world
numismatics - Modern numismatics is the study of the coins of the mid 17th to the 21st century
opprobrious - Expressing contemptuous reproach; scornful or abusive
quondam - at some time, at one time, once, heretofore, formerly, on a time
paucity - Smallness of number, scarcity, dearth
fracas - A noisy, disorderly fight or quarrel; a brawl
casuistry - a resolving of specific cases of conscience, duty, or conduct through interpretation of ethical principles or religious doctrine 2 : specious argument, rationalization
perspicacious - Having or showing penetrating mental discernment; clear-

sighted

Whew! I did it! This is one scary challenge, Quilly!