Cool words I've learned lately

Took an advanced English grammar course a month or so ago and learned two really cool new words:

- bustrophedon (also bustropheidon, boustrophedon, boustropheidon) can be used to describe writing that alternates directions: right to left on one line, left to right on the next. The word means something like "turning like oxen when plowing". Etymology: bu for cow, cattle, etc. (think "bovine") + strophe for line. I like the image of the writer's hand moving back and forth across the page like a plow team going back and forth across a field.

- paucal refers to a noun form that means "a few" (c.f. paucity). The progression would be singular, dual, paucal, plural. It seems that languages that have a paucal tend to use it for 3 or 4 things, going to the plural form at 5 (a made-up example: 1 blip, 2 blipa, 3 or 4 blipo, 5 or more blipi).

I learned another new word from one of the friends who came out to the cabin with us this past weekend. In the course of a discussion of how Splenda can claim to be made from sugar, W (a biochemist) gave us a quick, basic chemistry explanation, starting with the fact that all molecules have a chirality (kie-RAL-ity) or directional spiral. Reversing a molecule's chirality also means, inter alia, that people with penicillin allergies are able to benefit from penicillin-like antibiotics. I'd had a doctor explain why a new drug she was prescribing wasn't going to make me sick, but she didn't mention chirality. I wish she had; I'd've remembered what she said even better if she'd given me a spiffy new word to anchor the explanation to.