Pappi

I once heard someone say "Opportunities are like receding hair. You have to clutch on to it when you have enough of it. Once it passes by there is nothing left to hold on to". I missed one such opportunity when i was in my eighth grade. There was this tall, cute gujju girl with luscious lips in my class. I too looked quite cute then.It's not that i am bad now, if only i can find the inclination to shave regularly. Coming back to the story, one fine day when the teacher was absent and everyone was generally lazing around, this girl comes and sits next to me and puts her arm around me. Imagine! Her face next to mine. I can feel her breath. She asks me for a "pappi". Imagine the incredible good fortune! But you see I wasn't as smart then as i am now.
U wouldn't believe what i said to her.
I asked her :"what breed?"
I can't quite remember the look on her face.

[P.S. For those who don't quite understand what pappi means, it is slang in hindi for kiss.]

Vocab building can be fun

Preparing for GRE and other competitive exams requires a mastery of english words, some of which we may never use in our lifetime. Cramming down entire wordlists doesn't come naturally to everyone.Learning words through etymology is a very interesting way to go about it . Anyone who has used Norman Lewis' "Word power made easy" will agree. It is even better if the words themselves are interesting. The one word from Norman Lewis that immediately comes to mind is callipygous or callipygian. The word means having a beautiful, shapely posterior or in layman terms, having a nice ass. The word comes from two greek roots Kallos meaning beautiful and pyge meaning buttocks. Now anyone who comes across this word will not forget it for obvious reasons. Immediately the mind wanders to the next obvious question,which could be what is the equivalent term for an ugly ass (for pessimists) or what is the term for a beautiful pair of well u know what(for optimists...or perverts). This got me thinking and i coined a few words from my knowledge of etymology

cacopygian
callimastian
megamastian
pusillomastian
platymastian
pseudomastian

Apart from the first word, i couldn't find any of the others listed in any online lexicon.
I leave it to my readers to figure out the meanings of these words. I strongly ask everyone to contribute more such words to the queen's language and in the process building up your own vocabulary.