Nigerian malaproppery

[sagehen]

>On Aug 28, 2004, at 6:22 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>> Mark Mandel writes:
>>> Usually it takes me considerably less than a second to recognize a
>>> Nigerian
>>> scam spam letter and delete it, assuming I have not already deleted
>>> it from
>>> the subject line index. But a word in the first paragraph of this one
>>> caught
>>> my attention and I thought it was worth sharing with the rest of you
>>> word
>>> freaks.
>>
>> Well, epigrammatic in that the illness was brief (if not downright
>> pithy)?
>
>>> ... He died after an epigrammatic illness that lasted for
>>> only four days...
>
>as so often happens, a malaprop has induced the tip-of-the-tongue state
>in me.  help!  what was the writer aiming at with "epigrammatic"?
>"epidemic"?  "dramatic"?  what?
>
>arnold
~~~~~~~
Perhaps epigastric, epigastrium or even a coinage, epigastriumatic?
 I do like Doug Wilson's idea of "brief," though.

A. Murie