Fun With Wurds

In what hopefully was a temporary, Junior High School-type moment, I decided to compile a list of words and phrases that look and/or sound remarkably dirty.

But rest assured, as much fun as each word or phrase is to say (particularly at the top of one's lungs), not one of them is salacious. In fact, each entry is wholly appropriate for consumption by--or merely in the vicinity of--young children, grandparents, in-laws and fundamentalist, religious-types.

However, I realize that my guarantee might not carry much weight with the skeptics in the reading audience. Therefore, I included an easy-to-understand definition next to each word or phrase. And, as an added bonus, I presented the list in alphabetical order--just the thing to facilitate memorization.

1. annals written, historical records
2. assoil absolve or acquit
3. Bangkok city in Thailand
   
4. bilabial frication using both lips to make a “raspberry” sound
5. buttress a projecting structure made of stone
6. cocksure quite certain and confident
   
7. cunning linguist very clever expert on language
8. mass debate large group discussion
9. mass debater someone who participates in #8
10. philatelist stamp collector
11. proselytize an attempt to convert others
12. pussyfooting acting in an indirect manner
13. rectify make better or fix
    
14. sects offshoots from the main (religious) group
    
15. shitake type of mushroom
16. titular referring to the title of something
17. Uranus 7th planet from the sun

(The last-named caused so much in the way of embarrassment at symposiums and presentations, astronomers actually changed its pronunciation.)