The word we need

John Scalzi, over at Whatever, pulls out an interesting word in discussing Barrack Obama’s interview on 60 Minutes (and before you get annoyed, Obamaniacs, Scalzi is a big Obama supporter):

The dude’s got seriously wacky ears. I mean, I knew before that they were large and stuck out from his head — you can’t miss that — but during the interview I found myself unaccountably fascinated with them. They just, you know, don’t look normal. And I’m fine with that, since I didn’t vote for him on account of his shapely pinnae. Still wacky, though.

Pinnae is the plural of pinna, and it means “The broad flap of skin-covered cartilage which forms the external ear in humans and other mammals,” according to the OED. Pinna was originally the Latin word “for feather, wing, fin, and raised part of a battlement.” It had similar meaning to the Latin word ala, which means “Any wing-like process; esp. one of the lateral cartilages of the nose.” That meaning of pinna is now obsolete, the OED says.