I’ve decided to classify a strange/obscure/unusual/weird word as adventurous if I can make it relevant to my assembly of clichés from adventure movies. Call it artistic license or call it cheating, I don’t mind which. By adventure movies I’m thinking of Romancing the Tomb Raiders Of The Lost Jewel of the Nile and all its many relatives, including nieces, nephews and distant cousins. Such movies are about archaeological artifacts of great value and the dangerous and daring deeds involved in retrieving them.

1. Paleographist: If you want to retrieve an archaeological artifact, you are going have to be a paleographist or be good friends with a paleographist. Either will do, but it’s probably best if you just know a paloegraphist, because then it ‘s possible for the paleographist to get murdered to push the plot along. Either way, you (the hero of the tale) will have found some fragment of papyrus or stone with ancient writing on it and you need the paleographist to decode and translate it for you. A paleographist is an expert in the study of ancient writing and is expendable as soon as he has provided you with a clue on the whereabouts of the ancient artifact. The ancient artifact will, of course, be a halidom.
2. Viraginity: If you’re going on a blockbuster adventure you will need a woman along (or if you’re a woman you’ll need a man along.) History has demonstrated time and again that nothing of any value ever gets found on such adventures unless it is being sought by a loosely-coupled couple. The woman, who will be pretty of course, will also need to be viraginous and as the plot advances her viraginity will become increasingly evident. She absolutely mustn’t lose her viraginity until the final scene of the movie when she will be allowed to have an “American moment” of some kind. Viraginity refers to the masculine qualities of a woman.
3. Poliadic & Anthropomancy: The heroic couple will surely get caught at some point by some tribe of natives that inhabit the location of the ancient artifact. It will not be a gentle tribe of pacifists. After they have caught our heroes we will discover, to our horror, that the chief priest of the tribe is an anthropomantist. Our heroes will thus be prepared to be sacrificed in front of some poliadic idol and it will look as though their goose is well and truly cooked. Fortunately because of the inability of the natives to tie decent knots, or the presence of a shard of glass somewhere or some other plot device, our loosely-coupled couple will escape and they’ll take the halidom with them. By the way, before I forget, poliadic means “relating to a local deity” and anthopomancy is divination using human entrails.
4. Halidom. If you are wondering why the natives turned out to be so hostile, doubtless it will be because the ancient artifact our heroes have decided to retrieve is a halidom. That is also why, when the natives discover that our heroes have escaped, they will chase them in a furious manner, armed to the teeth with knives, spears and bows and arrows. If you really want to rile someone; steal their halidom. If they have several; steal them all. Technically, a halidom is anything considered holy or sacred. Ancient artifacts in adventure movies (ark, holy grail, crystal skull, jewel of the nile, etc.) are always halidoms. The next Indiana Jones movie will probably be called: Indiana Jones and Another Goddam Halidom.
5. Joola: So our heroes have escaped and they are trying to get away, chased by a band of natives with spears. They charge through the jungle and they come to the joola. The joola is the suspension bridge built out of ropes that crosses a chasm so deep that if you drop a stone you don’t hear it hit the bottom until the end of the movie. Our heroes start to cross the joola and, wouldn’t you know it, the planks they step on start to break beneath their feet and tumble into the chasm, from whence no sound will come until the end of the movie. There can be only two explanations for this sudden failure of public infrastructure: either the joola maintenance team has been neglecting its duties in the past few months or the joola itself is resistentialist.
6. Resistentialism: I don’t know about you, but I’ve experienced resistentialism and it’s not pleasant. I don’t support it and I’d be delighted if the stain that is resistentialism was banished from this planet and indeed the whole solar system. I’m not going to embark on some philosophical diatribe that explains the logical contradictions within the whole resistential movement and condemns all its adherents. I’m simply going to say this: resistentialism is a plague on mankind. Enough. If you’re wondering what resistentialism is, it’s the spiteful behavior of inanimate things. Adventure movies of this kind are rotten with resistentialism. Joolas are particularly prone to it.
7. Schoenobatic & Militaster: Depending on how the joola fails, our heroes will either have to claw their way up out of the chasm on what remains of the joola after it comes apart, while the infuriated natives fire arrows and throw spears or they’ll have to practice their schoenabatic skills while the infuriated  natives fire arrows and throw spears. No matter which of these possibilities transpires there’s no possibility of our heroes getting wounded because the natives, infuriated though they may be, are all militasters. Schoenobatic skills are those of balance, particularly those relating to tight-rope walking. What could be more welcome when you’re practicing such skills under fire on a damaged joola than to realize that all the natives are militasters, soldiers without any skills or ability, who couldn’t hit a barn door with a blunderbus if they were sitting on the handle.
8. Hisbid. By the time that our male hero arrives at the joola he will surely be hisbid. The loosely coupled couple have been captured and tied up for a while. Were it not for the fact that the militasters couldn’t tie knots, they would probably never have escaped. They would no doubt be having their entrails read on some sacrificial slab by the high priest of the halidom. In all the excitement – getting captured and escaping – the hero will not have had time to shave and hence will be hisbid, which means stubbly or unshaven. It ought also to be the case that the legs of our heroic woman be hisbid, but there will be no evidence of that on the big screen despite her viraginity.
9. Humgruffin. Of course the natives are only bit-part villains, the real humgruffin is some other archaeologists who wants to possess the halidom and hang it on the wall above his fireplace, where only he and his strangely unattractive mistress will be able to see it. Our heroes are desperate to put the halidom in the care of the Smithsonian or the British Museum or some other place where artifacts hang out and have fun. Unfortunately, the humgruffin will appear with a gun when our heroes make it across the chasm and will take possession of the halidom leaving our heroes to fight off the militasters who, by now, will have made their way across a perfectly sound joola a few hundred yards down the track from the joola that fell to pieces.
10. Infracaninophile. You’re probably an infracaninophile, like me, and thus when you get to the joola part of the movie you have no problem suspending your disbelief about the suspension bridge. “Hey, rope frays and wood rots.” You’re more concerned that our heroes escape from the vast horde of militasters that are chasing them, and that they overcome the shameful neglect of the joola maintenance team, and that they keep the halidom out of the hands of the humgruffin. I often wonder when watching such movies whether there is anyone in the audience cheering for the militasters or the humgruffin. Probably not. The movie’s director has convinced us, through various plot machinations, that our heroes face insuperable odds. We all love the underdog – that’s what an infracaninophile is, someone who supports the underdog – so we cheer for the loosely-coupled couple.

I don’t need to tell you the rest, but I will. After risking their lives a few more times, the heroes will regain possession of the halidom and the humgruffin will meet a sticky end. (A humgruffin, by the way, simply means “a terrible person”.) The halidom will be put in the hands of some museum curator, who is the uncle of the female half of the loosely coupled couple. Finally, our loosely-coupled couple will have an American moment to bring the movie to a close. As for the militasters, if they have any sense, they’ll put more effort into practicing spear-throwing and archery and do their best to ensure that their joolas are better maintained in the future.

10 Curse Words You Don’t Know
10 Insulting Words You Don’t Know
10 Nonsense Words You Don’t Know
10 Words You Don’t Know With Limericks
10 Units of Measure You Don’t Know

Click here for the full list of postings: Words You Dont Know
Click here to BUY the book: Words You Don’t Know on Amazon