This is why I love the English Language … So many of our words are just so pretentious. Take today’s word-of-the-day from wordsmith.org:

omphaloskepsis (om-fuh-lo-SKEP-sis) noun Contemplation of one’s navel.

[From Greek omphalos (navel) + skepsis (act of looking, examination).
Ultimately from the Indo-European root spek- (to observe) which is
also the ancestor of suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer),
despise, espionage, telescope, spectator, and spectacles.]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“Readers whose main interest is literary how-to or criticism can look
elsewhere, in places specifically dedicated to those matters. Doing
too much of it here would smack of omphaloskepsis.”
Stanley Schmidt; About Science Fiction; Analog Science Fiction & Fact
(New York); Jun 2001.

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