Word of the Day

After spending four years at The Master's College, I couldn't resist the following when it came up in my Google toolbar as the Word of the Day (from Wordsmith.org).

Tarantism:

An uncontrollable urge to dance.

[After Taranto, a town in southern Italy where this phenomenon was experienced during the 15-17th centuries. It's not clear whether tarantism was the symptom of a spider's bite or its cure, or it may have been just a pretext to dodge a prohibition against dancing. The names of the dance tarantella and the spider tarantula are both derived from the same place.]

I wonder what people at TMC would say if you tried to use this excuse (err...reason?) for dancing. :-)

~Matt