Circumlocutions

Two gems of paraphrase from my recently-unearthed notebook:

Cool: defined as "under control through stylistic moves", by. . . I'm not sure.

On I believe:

His reduction of complex ideas into simple constituents was a practical rather than a philosophical analysis with the aim of isolating ideas which could be represented by physical movements. Thus the phrase 'I believe' would be broken down into four elements, each with its own gesture:

I say yes with my mind
I say yes with my heart
I say yes with my mouth
I have not seen and I still cannot see with my eyes

(Andrew Large, The Artificial Language Movement, p. 56, on the sign-language system of the Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée)

Also, wonderfully, the Old German for 'foreskin' is zumpfen-huetilin.