Ernest Hemingway. Randy Wayne White. Doc Savage. John Buchan. Eliza Lucas Pinckey.

These are some recent reads as your Webb Weekly wordsmith works his way towards 1,000 books in retirement (currently at 759 titles, yay).

Since that’s where I get most of the oddball vocab in these columns, I thought I’d share a few new finds from the last several weeks.

But first, a note about some of those names:

* Doc Savage is a whiz-bang superhero in Depression-era pulp adventures produced by the prolific pen of one Kenneth Robeson (pen-name of Lester Dent). There were nearly 200 of these outlandish tales, the first half of which were reissued as handsome paperbacks in the 1960s and 1970s. I fell in love with them in adolescence and, having slowly collected all 96, I try to read one every couple of months. They’re not exactly great literature, but … “what one loves in childhood stays in the heart forever” (Mary Jo Putney).

* An 18th-century wife, mother and farmer in South Carolina, Eliza Lucas Pinckney pioneered indigo as a key cash crop in the American colonies. Her story is told in Natasha Boyd’s fictionalized Indigo Girl and in Margaret F. Pickett’s fascinating 2018 bio.

* As for John Buchan — where do even I start? A virtual Renaissance man, he fought during World War I; served in Parliament and the British diplomatic corps; worked as a church official, lawyer and publisher; became the first Baron Tweedsmuir; and penned over 100 books. One of my go-to writers, Buchan is best known for his five-novel series about British spy and adventurer Richard Hannay, the first of which — 1915’s The Thirty-Nine Steps — has been adapted four times for the screen … not to mention dozens of stage and radio versions.

* White was covered in last week’s Webb; dig it up if you can!

Now about those words:

Brad (BRAD, noun) – I know, I know — it’s just a plain old-fashioned male name; but I was surprised to learn that brad is also a common noun. As Wikipedia puts it: “Brads are small, thin, tapered nails with a lip or projection to one side rather than a full head.”

Whatever the antonym is for handyman, that would be me — a guy who once tried to remove two of his own fingers using a snowblower as the surgical instrument (happily, this operation was not successful). So perhaps lots of other folks already knew brad; but it was new to me, along with brattice, another construction term having to do with walls — often inside a mine.

Chuck-a-luck (CHUK-uh-luk, noun) – From Dictionary.com: “a game played with three dice at which the players bet that a certain number will come up on one die, that the three dice will total a certain number, or that the total will be an odd number, even number, a high number, or a low number.” Also called birdcage or sweat rag, it is — again per Wikipedia — derived from an ancient Chinese game called sic bo.

Conglobate (con-GLOW-bate, verb) – To form into a ball. Also styled conglobe. (Noun form: conglobation.)

Ghazal (GAH-zell, noun) – Also spelled ghazel, this is “an Arabic love poem with a recurring rhyme and a limited number of stanzas” (Collins).

Memsahib (noun) – This word is used repeated in Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa — the nonfiction account of a 1933 safari by the writer and his second wife, Pauline. As it happens, this somewhat common Hindi term therein exclusively refers to her. The venerable American Heritage Dictionary has its actual definition thus: “used formerly in colonial India as a respectful address for a European woman.” Which is odd because the book takes place in Africa; and of course, Pauline was — like Papa himself — American.

This word combines ma’am and the Arabic sahib (meaning “master”). There are numerous ways to pronounce it, with sources disagreeing on which is preferred: MEM-sa-eeb; MEM-sahb; or -hib; or -heeb. My own brain always heard a stress on the final syllable when reading — but I don’t see that as an option in my dictionaries….

Pigboat (PIG-bote, noun) – Early 20th-century slang for a submarine — perhaps derived from vessel’s shape.

So I don’t know if any of this makes you feel smarter; nor am I sure if reading John Buchan would do that either. I mean, you learn a lot from him; but it’s kind of intimidating to be in the hands of a man who knew and accomplished so much.

Try 39 Steps, Mr. Standfast or John Macnab if you want a window into his wondrous world.