The Toad's Words™
Excursus #2
To continue to edify my vocabulary and to inflict it on others I present the second installment of The Toad's Words.
Epiphany, 
The sudden perception of the meaning of something or the intuitive understanding of reality through something or an event that is usually striking and simple. (It is also the church festival observed on January 6 in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.)
Maggie's epiphany occurred on the Fourth of July while watching Elmer run the french fryer at MacDonalds. "Christ," she said to herself, "My parents are right, college is a good choice."
Epistle
, nounA formal or elegant letter.
Something that Jane Eyre might write. (It is also one of the letters adopted as books of the New Testament but I rarely use it in that context.)
Maggie elected to write her parents, Ephraim and Esther, an epistle explaining her epiphany rather than phoning them.
Effete,
adjectiveNo longer fertile, marked by weakness, or effeminate. (One not all, although I suppose it could be.)
Even though he had only worked the French fryer for five years, it had taken its toll and Elmer was now effete. Or, was it the living with his two maiden aunts that had caused it?
Cacophony,
nounHarsh or discordant sound, dissonance.
Ephraim and Esther raised quite a cacophony upon receiving their daughter's epistle explaining her ephipany.
Revised: August 27, 2000