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
If something reads the same backwards as it does left to right, that is called a palindrome. As we saw last week in “Weird Words,” palindromes can be numerical — like all the dates from 5/20/25 through 5/29/25. Of course, those work only if you overlook the slashes, which is what most palindromers do —
Nine free concerts in 28 days. That’s what Williamsport’s world-famous Repasz Band has lined up for the summer of 2025. Venues and occasions include local parks, annual festivals, summer holidays, nearby nursing homes, a national convocation in Gettysburg — and even two brand-new sites where the group has never played before. Just a few weeks
(Now Read That Backwards) If, like me, you spend too much time on social media, you might’ve seen some recent posts about the month of May having “palindromic dates.” A palindrome, as you may know, is any word, number or other sequence that’s the same backwards as forwards. Simple examples include the year 2002, or
Having originated in May 2023, Webb’s “Weird Words” now stands at a nice round 90 installments over the past two years. Sometime this summer, we’ll notch our 100th article on oddball vocabulary. So with my own running list also nearing a bit of a landmark — 55 more terms to reach 3,000! — here’s another
