Truth About the Circulation Desk

Today at work, Mike G came in and noticed the small shiny placard on the main desk at the library. He stared at it for a while and asked a question that set us off on a journey of knowledge, truth, and betrayal: "What is desuetudinal?"

The little sign affixed to the desk near the book drop reads: A gift from a desuetudinal friend. I've noticed the existence of this sign, but never taken notice before. So I attacked the internet, but like the spell check on this computer, it doesn't accept desuetudinal as a word.

The closest word I could find was "testudinal" which relates to tortoises and their shells, and is therefore, probably unaffiliated with our desk. But finally, the noun form of desuedinal appeared. Here is a composite definition:

Desuetude: a state of disuse and inactivity, or quality of being obsolete

Thus our circulation desk was funded by an obsolete or inactive friend. Nice. Whoever wrote that placard was a pretty clever wordsmith. The donor must have been someone who was affiliated with the college long ago, but fell into disuse as a friend. Maybe it was someone who gave money, but who no one liked. So the placard people chose an adjective that no one would understand, so patrons would see some nice, unimpressionable vocabulary that told the bitter truth about who donated the desk.

Man, I love words.