As we proceed through “March Madness” toward a strange Sunday-Monday conjunction of Easter and April Fools’, your Weird Words writer is compiling a suitable pair of vocabulary lists: one on fools & madness — and then, more positively, on the death and resurrection of Christ.
In the meantime, here are 10 more oddball terms to tide us over until then:
Claggy (KLAG-ee, adj.) – Sticky, gummy; thick and muddy. According to the voluminous Collins English Dictionary, the root word is clag, which means simply “mud” — and also (as a verb) “to stick.”
Eryngo (uh-RING-go, noun) – Carrot-like plant which, in the authoritative words of Merriam-Webster, bears “elongate spinulose-margined leaves and flowers in dense bracted heads.” And thus, as so often when looking up a word, we have to dig out two more definitions: spinulose = having tiny spines (from spinule); and bract = a specialized leaf, usually located at the base of a flower.
Merriam-Webster also points out that one marine species of eryngo (called “sea holly”) was formerly employed as an aphrodisiac — which begs the question: Just who figured out the plant could be used that way? Seems like a lot of trial-and-error to me….
Furcula (FUR-kyuh-luh, noun) – The clavicle-bone from bird — i.e., “wishbone.” Related to fork, which describes its split shape. The tiny insect called a springtail has an external furcula that helps it leap into the air (hence its name).
Gutser (GUT-ser, noun) – Australian slang for a person who eats too much, or too greedily. According to Collins, in Australia and New Zealand to “come a gutser” means to fall down heavily, or “to fail through error or misfortune.”
Oganesson (oh-GAN-uh-sun, noun) – A “superheavy,” man-made chemical element, synthesized in Russia in 2002 — under the supervision of nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian, for whom it was named; its atomic number is 118 on the periodic table.
According to Wikipedia, oganesson is one of only two elements named for someone who was alive at the time — the other being seaborgium (106), for chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. As the latter passed away in 1999, Oganessian (now 90) is the only living person for whom an element was named.
Rigadoon (rig-uh-DOON, noun) – Like most folks, I’ve known the capitalized term Brigadoon for years — in my case, since my high school drama club staged that Lerner & Loewe musical way back in the 1970s.
But I never saw this common noun till recently, when I encountered it while thumbing through one of my many dictionaries; there, it was defined it as “an old-fashioned lively dance performed by one couple” — or alternately, “the music for it.” (From the idiosyncratic Winston Dictionary, which was given to me by a friend, and which is so old that its appendix of “Persons and Places” has Hitler as still alive!)
Smir (SMEER, noun) – Scottish term for drizzly rain. Alternately spelled smirr or smur, it can also be a verb. Of uncertain origin; possibly related to the Dutch smoor, meaning “mist.”
Summat (SUM-it, pron.) – Our first pronoun in nearly 40 columns, this is British slang for “something.” I came upon it a couple of weeks ago while watching The Full Monty — a film whose dialog is so heavily cockney that I had to use subtitles, which is how I noted this unusual term.
Twicer (TWICE-ur, noun) – A person who does something twice — especially a two-time loser; also Australian slang for a crook or a liar.
Wicopy (WIK-uh-pee, noun) – A synonym for either of two American plants — a tough-barked shrub called leatherwood, or a species of linden also known as basswood.
For our forthcoming columns on insanity and Christ, I’ll try not to “come a gutser”; that would be summat awful — especially if I did it both times and thus became a twicer. Ugh.
