By Joseph W. Smith III

Though we took a hiatus to write about movies and music, Webb’s most recent “Weird Words” column ended with a term that helped young Shrey Parikh win the 98th Scripps National Spelling Bee this year.

That was uayeb — pronounced “WYE-eb.” Merriam-Webster defines this as “a period consisting of five nameless days added to a tun to make the 365-day year of the Maya calendar.”

Your favorite word-nerd was puzzled, however, by the fact that MW’s separate definition of tun has nothing to do with calendars; instead, that venerable resource gives it as a unit of measure — 252 gallons, to be precise. But while A-I helped by explaining that “360 days” is one alternate meaning of tun, something about this nagged at me — and I didn’t pin it down till after my deadline.

As it turns out, what kept clawing at my subconscious is a long-ago factoid that I know as pool-owner and frequent carrier-in of groceries: most liquids weigh around 8 pounds a gallon; so 252 of these makes approximately 2,000 pounds.

In other words: a tun weighs a ton.

This cannot be what Popeye might call a “co-inky-dinks.” And it ain’t.

I had actually intended to use the tun/ton anecdote as an intro for this column, leaving it a mystery and then proceeding to my final set of words from Scripps. But just on a whim, I went to Google and typed, “Is the word tun related to ton?”

Here’s what I got:

“Yes, the words ‘tun’ and ‘ton’ are etymologically related…. Historically, a ton is derived from a tun, which was a large wooden cask used to store liquids like wine or ale…. A full tun of wine typically weighed about 2,000 to 2,240 pounds. Over time, merchants and shippers began using the name of the container (‘tun’) to refer to the weight or capacity of the cargo it held…. Eventually, the spelling for the container remained tun (mostly used in the beverage industry today), while the spelling for the unit of weight became ton.”

All of this credits Wikipedia as its source.

And here I suppose my readers may ask if A-I and Wikipedia should be relied on for factual info.

Now I’ll admit my own soul is still firmly located in the 20th century — so I’m no expert on A-I. (But as you probably noticed, I like to use a hyphen when writing it — so it doesn’t look like a man’s first name!)

Nonetheless, I’ve had success using A-I for research when other options fail. For those who don’t trust it, one interesting experiment is to ask it who you are, using your full name and town — like this: “Who is Judith A. Graham from Jersey Shore PA?” You might be surprised.

(When I do that, right after I finish typing my name, it offers to fill in “from Williamsport,” “from Montoursville” or “from Pennsylvania.” Spooky.)

As for Wikipedia: Yes, virtually anyone can write an entry — or edit one; but if you type in junk, it gets taken down in a very short time. And if you do so repeatedly, they block your IP address. I’m fond of citing a 2005 study by the respected journal Nature, which found Wikipedia just as reliable — and sometimes more so — than Encyclopedia Britannica.

If you’re still not convinced, look up something complex at Wiki (say, the French Revolution, or Marilyn Monroe) — and get a gander at the sources and footnotes!

I should add, however, that the site is not terribly reliable in the areas of theology and Bible study. It does have a bit of an ideological bias; but of course, that describes lots of other sources these days — including many of my own columns.

After all, I began this piece planning another list of Scripps words — and instead went down a rabbit-hole I never got out of.

Can you trust a guy like that?