ARE you a dub-skelper? Even in your Sunday best do you brave torrential rain in search of a good splerg, all so you can relish the jorg as you squelch homewards?

If so, not only do you possess an unusual fondness for mud and puddles (dub-skelper), enjoy a good splash about in them (splerg), and covet the noise of your shoes when they are full of water (jorg), but you are a master of old Scots.

Such esoteric turns of Scots and Gaelic have been compiled in a book by Adam Jacot de Boinod, a former researcher on Stephen Fry’s BBC 2 series Quite Interesting.

In the eyes of its author, Tourjours Tingo - More Extraordinary Words To Change The Way We See The World is designed to rally against the “cultural supremacism of the television, internet, and identikit shopping malls”, and celebrate linguistic diversity.

Few tomes have better exposed the limitations of the English tongue. Drawing on more than 300 languages, the book is the result of exhaustive research. Having searched 300 dictionaries, 140 websites and many books, the author hopes this one will make you elmosolyodik (Hungarian, break into a smile), or bring on an attack of latterkrampe (Norwegian, convulsive laughter), but that it doesn’t reduce you to gegemena (Rukwangali, Namibia, muttering while sobbing).

The compendium of lexical curiosities includes many Scots words, along with some more unusual items of Gaelic vocabulary that have fallen by the wayside.

Yet while the terms have gone out of favour, many have an uncanny prescience. Take, for instance, the Scots word tartle - to hesitate in recognising a person or thing, as when you are introducing someone whose name you can’t quite remember.

Then there is bamp. An uncomplimentary description of a person who harps and nags on and on about the same topic. Equally unkind is bapp-nose, describing a nose so large it threatens to meet the chin of its owner.

The Gaelic entries are equally scathing. A sgiomalaireachd, for instance, is the act of popping in on people during mealtimes.

Speaking to The Scotsman, Mr de Boinod said: “A lot of the Scots words reflect a very individual culture. But there also words that reflect universal sentiments and joys.

“The words in the book may not come back into common usage, but they’ve been published to highlight the fact life is wonderfully diverse, and we should celebrate that.”

Not every word retrieved by Mr de Boinod is easily translatable, however. There is no English equivalent of the Finnish poronkusema - the distance a reindeer can travel without taking a comfort break. Nor would we often use embasan, from the Maguindanaon language of the Philippines, which means to wear clothes while taking a bath. But we might well find use for an English version of the Japanese okuri-okami, which describes a man who feigns thoughtfulness by offering to see a girl home only to molest her on her own doorstep.

(02-13) 06:03 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) —

President Bush says he is pleased the Senate has passed new rules for government eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails.

(02-13) 06:15 PST Los Angeles (AP) —

Satellite TV operator DirecTV Group Inc. said Wednesday higher interest payments on its debt sent fourth-quarter earnings down 2 percent.

The El Segundo, Calif., company earned $348 million in the quarter compared with $356 million a year ago. Per-share income rose to 30 cents from 29 cents because the company had more shares outstanding in the latest period.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for profit of 29 cents per share.

Revenue rose 17 percent to $4.88 billion, exceeding Wall Street’s estimate for $4.77 billion.

DirecTV added 275,000 subscribers during the quarter, closing out the period with a total of 16.8 million subscribers.

The company’s monthly churn rate, or the pace of customer defection, fell during the most recent quarter to an eight-year low of 1.42 percent, the company said.

Chase Carey, DirecTV’s president and chief executive, attributed the lower churn to a 10 percent increase in the number of subscribers purchasing high-definition and digital recording services, and tighter credit policies by the company.

“We exit 2007 with tremendous operating and financial momentum,” Carey said in a statement.

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AP Business Writer Jeremy Herron in New York contributed to this report.