Arcane Words

My father loved slapstick comedy and cowboy movies. What a curious combo for someone who also loved arcane words and read historical tomes. One moment he spoke to me about Thucydides and Josephus, then asked if I knew anyone who was a phlyarologist. The question sent me on a word search since reading Thucydides was too heady and didn't compare to re-reading Alice in Wonderland. 

And Alice in Wonderland introduced me to the concept of suspending disbelief years and years before I read Samuel Taylor Coleridge's words about the ability of a writer to cause the reader to willingly suspend belief -- even when the tale is fantasy.