According to Britannica’s website, there may have been two men named Valentine — both dating back to ancient times. Both were Christian martyrs, while one was patron saint of lovers — though he’s also associated with epileptics and beekeepers. Since this doesn’t sound terribly romantic, I tend to sidestep Valentine-related terms here at “Weird Words”
Send Help is a new thriller about two people stranded on an island. Since it opened after this article was written, I haven’t seen it — though I suspect it’s too bloody for some of our “family-friendly” readers. (After all, director Sam Raimi — whose resume includes several Spider-Man movies and the sadly neglected Simple
Here at Webb’s “Weird Words,” our stock-in-trade is presenting lists of oddball vocab — complete with pronunciation, part of speech, definitions and sundry other info on origin and usage. But we’ve been on a lengthy hiatus from that, covering the Broadway revival of Waiting for Godot (loaded with unusual language) and then moving on to
Last week, Webb’s Weird Words feted the new year by looking at new words in a new dictionary. That would be the 12th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate, the first update of that venerable tome since 2003. Now that I actually have one in my hands, here are a few reflections on this long-awaited revamp. The
“Because of the internet and AI, destructive behavior is more accessible to good men than ever before,” says Tim Hartzell. “We don’t even have to look for it — it pursues us. And if we are not prepared for the attack, we will fall.” Hartzell, a recent area pastor and now a freelance writer focusing
