More making up for the fact that Dr Johnson was never lucky enough to be a TEFL teacher, this time with one of my favourite TEFL games ever, Call My Bluff. In the classroom version you get the students to make up the wrong definitions to try and fool the other student or team with, but even on my last day in my previous job I wasn’t slack enough to get my students to write my blog for me so you have to choose the real definition from Dr Johnson’s dictionary via Henry Hitchings, not being fooled by the fake definition made up very quickly by me to stop wasting any more time on the TEFL otaku topic… (answers at the bottom of the page)
1. Is an amatorcultist (a) a little insignificant lover, or (b) a lover of the art of gardening?
2. Is a bellygod (a) one who makes a god of his belly, or (b) a drug that calms the troubled gut?
3. Is deosculation (a) the art of kissing, or (b) losing an eye or part of an eye?
4. Is kissingcrust (a) a crust formed when one loaf in the oven touches another, or (b) a soreness upon the lips caused by an excess of kissing?
5. Is gazingstock (a) a person gazed at with scorn or abhorrence (related to ‘laughingstock’), or (b) cattle that stare at you as you pass?
6. Is potvaliant (a) heated with courage by a strong drink, or (b) culinary adventurousness?
7. Is subderisorious (a) scoffing or ridiculing with tenderness or delicacy, or (b) contemptuous of someone below you?
8. Is vaticide (a) a murderer of poets, or (b) a murderer of popes?
9. Is rhabdomancy (a) divination by a wand, or (b) Scottish witchery?
10. Is suppedaneous (a) placed upon the feet, (b) connected to the evening meal?
11. Is anatiferous (a) producing ducks, or (b) the burning of phosphor? All the correct answers are (a)
That’s me done with Dr Johnson posts as I now know more about him than any one person really needs to, so to end here is a poem from the dictionary that was too good to leave out but too random to make a whole post out of:
“Effeminate he sat, and quiet;/ Strange product of a cheesecake diet”
TEFLtastic 
Yes, I came across ‘potvaliant’ the other day, in a book called “The A-Z of Johnson’s Dictionary”, or something similar. A great book and an excellent word for those inflamed by booze, I feel – I’ll be shoe-horning it into my daily vocab soon. The rest I find a little too recondite for me, mate! (Is that the right word – recondite – and which syllable should I stress?)
Is that the David Crystal one? Nearly bought it, but thought two books on the topic really would be going too far and there was the danger of actually using the vocab in conversation…