Sharkfin soup
'Germane,' said Zinjanthrop, chewing the syllables ruminatively, as a cow chews its cud. 'Now there's a word for you. But what does it mean? A special kind of eye-bean soup with fishbones? Or a bean pie baked with marbles, and served with a tofu salad on the side?'
'Sharkfin soup,' said Atlanta. 'That's what it means, if you really want to know.'
The people of Chalakanesia are proud plain speakers, but Atlanta loved to regurgitate the several dictionaries she had swallowed in her legal training. She was totally shameless about it, even though she regularly slapped down Heineman for using long words. But then, it was her guess that Heineman had nothing but the vaguest knowledge of the true meaning of the more abstruse words in his vocabulary. Besides, she was a lawyer. Freedom of vocabulary was a professional privilege - and why should her grandfather pretend to talk like an illiterate fishermen when he knew just as many words as she did? [WoH Ch2]