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Today's word: ecdysiast (n.) a striptease artiste.

This day (13th March) in 1898 saw a dancer named Blanche Cavelli perform what is thought to be the world's first confirmed public striptease on stage in a Paris nightclub.

* I'm not a French speaker, but I imagine the French audiences might have been calling out "plus" or "encore", rather than more. But to avoid confusion, I've kept the English version of the word.

My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.

Thanks for reading.

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