Jegging-Clad Cilantrophobes

As you know, we are all about expanding the vocabulary of our benighted followers. So here are a couple of words we've come across in the paper over the last few days. Make sure to add them to your vocabulary journals, people.

1. JEGGINGS (N.) - A new fashion craze: jeans so tight that they appear to be leggings.

This, incidentally, is an example of a portmanteau word: A word formed by combining parts of other words, very popular in the animal kingdom: A Cocker Spaniel-Poodle mix is a cockapoo; a lion-tiger mix is a liger; a horse and zebra form a hebra (very common in Israeli zoos); and mules and donkeys get together to produce monkeys.

2. CILANTROPHOBE (N.) - As you might expect, this is someone who hates cilantro. Hey, don't snicker: It's serious enough that people have conducted research on the condition:

"Some people may be genetically predisposed to dislike cilantro, according to often-cited studies by Charles J. Wysocki of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. But cilantrophobe genetics remain little known and aren't under systematic investigation" (from The New York Times).

Indeed, a ban on such investigations is a little-known clause of the Geneva Conventions, the ramifications of seasoning-based weapons of mass destruction being too dread to consider.

(Image from nytimes.com)