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As a child of Los Angeles, I have a relationship with reality that is frangible at best.

But, before us, entombed in the banks of the stream, was a mucky tropical sea bottom, where thin, frangible layers of gray siltstone marked the passage of centuries.

The authors go deep into the patent registry to extract strange nuggets of industrial poetry: “mouth comfort” and “sealable coupling” and “frangible closure” and “upstanding thumb catches.”

Among other “neglected” words it wants to revive are “couth,” which means cultured, refined and well-mannered, and “frangible,” referring to something that’s fragile.

Among other “neglected” words it wants to revive are “couth,” which means cultured, refined and well-mannered, and “frangible,” referring to something that’s fragile.