Super

I was at a conference in Denver last month, and came across this word carved in the side of a building: Superincumbent. Naturally, I needed to record the phenomenon in digital pixels, and I finally got around to posting it here.

Obviously, the word was part of a larger sentence, and I'm sure whoever wrote it originally meant well. But it seemed like overkill to me. Was there no other way to convey the concept? Why not use a word people actually understand? Unless of course the intent was to decorate rather than communicate. I suspect that was the case.

The other funny thing about this word is, when you google it, you get a list of pages with titles like "definition of superincumbent" as if the only thing you can do with this word is define it (and in case you're curious, it means "lying or resting on and exerting pressure on something else").

The point? Architecture is not only bewildering, it's also funny sometimes... particularly when people use words to do things other than share ideas and information.