Here is a wide variety of words picked up from my recent TLS reading. As usual I knew some of them but check them again for accuracy. Fun.

jerboa noun: a desert-dwelling rodent with very long hind legs that enable it to walk upright and perform long jumps, found from North Africa to central Asia. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: modern Latin, from Arayarbū‘ .

paratext ˜ Not in the online dictionary but my guess is that it's related to paraphrase:

paraphrase verb [ with obj. ]: express the meaning of (something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity: you can either quote or paraphrase literary texts. noun: a rewording of something written or spoken. scattered here and there in the text are frank paraphrases of lines from Virgil, Cicero, and Quintilian. [ mass noun ] : it is characteristic of poetic metaphors that they are not susceptible to paraphrase. DERIVATIVES paraphrasable adjective, paraphrase: adjective ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (as a noun): via Latin from Greek paraphrases, from paraphrazein, from para- (expressing modification) + phrazein ‘tell’.

pangolin noun: an African and Asian mammal that has a body covered with horny overlapping scales, a small head with an elongated snout, a long sticky tongue for catching ants and termites, and a tapering tail. Also called scaly anteater. ●Family Manidae and order Pholidota: genera Manis (three species in Asia) and Phataginus (four species in Africa). ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from Malay peng-guling, literally ‘roller’ (from its habit of rolling into a ball). [Just think ant-eater.]

I think I looked this one up quite recently. Do you remember it? bricolage noun (pl. same or bricolages) [ mass noun ]: (in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things. the chaotic bricolage of the novel is brought together in a unifying gesture. • [ count noun ] something constructed or created from a diverse range of things. bricolages of painted junk. ORIGIN French.

bibliotherapist This also is not in the online dictionary but I think the meaning is clear? I might be in need of one.

fettle noun [ mass noun ]condition: Marguerite was in fine fettle. verb [ with obj. ]trim or clean the rough edges of (a metal casting or a piece of pottery) before firing.• N. Englishmake or repair (something). ORIGIN late Middle English (as a verb in the general sense ‘get ready, prepare’, specifically ‘prepare oneself for battle, gird up’): from dialect fettle‘strip of material, girdle’, from Old English fetel, of Germanic origin; related to German Fessel ‘chain, band’.

Okay: we've all used the phrase 'fine fettle', haven't we? But I never knew the meaning of the verb it comes from. Learn something every day. Can you use it?

It seems I'm always trying to catch up with something. Today and yesterday (and the day before and several days ((nights)) to come, it's The Times Literary Supplement. If ever there was an instrument to make me feel humble - not humble - abject, it's the TLS. Weekly!

I started two nights ago to go through a pile of back issues. I've already read/skimmed them, marking pieces to read or save or think about. Now I have a pile of clippings that I have to do something more with: order books I want to read; send articles to people and also keep some for myself either to re-read and toss or to file or to tuck (reviews) into books I have bought on a TLS recommendation. Fortunately, the baseball season has begun and this is an ideal activity for multi-tasking.

But I'm still humble. Very. All those reviewers and writers know so much. I tend to forget that each one is an expert (or almost) in his/her field and cower in awe. I'll never be a polymath, but perhaps they won't be, either. I do think it is very difficult to be a polymath in the world of the 21st century. ([ think of that nice (old) song: "I know a little bit about a lot of things/But I don't know enough about you." If you're old enough the melody will be in your memory bank.] Ah well. I know a little bit but I don't know Arabic, or Russian, or Mandarin, for that matter. My Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse are very little use to me. Or Middle English.

I think I am the only female expert extant on pataphysics, but no one cares. I wrote an essay about it that was published in the first Dropped Threads collection, minus eight pages that the editor cut because she didn't understand what I was writing about - ironic because the book was an anthology of pieces by women that no one had ever allowed them to publish before. Ah well.

Every day in every way I'm getting more and more obscure, still grateful after all these years for the TLS. Maybe I should write about pataphysics for it - them?