Some English words are unutterable, not for their rudeness but because to say them aloud would make you sound like a stick-in-the-mud.

No, these tasty old words (like “pickerdevant” and “susurrous”) should be savoured on the page, in the quietude of our minds, and there remain a secret, guilty pleasure.

A reason, perhaps, why these words feel so good to read but make us sound pompous when spoken is that these two worlds – of speech and writing – are so divergent.

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So much so that it is possible to damage the part of the brain responsible for one without affecting the other, a recent study found.

“It’s as though there were two quasi-independent language systems in the brain,” said lead author Professor Brenda Rapp, a cognitive scientist.

With this in mind, the author trusts that you will savour the following list of weird and wonderful words without daring to give them voice.

List of words