If you’ve missed Weird Words these past couple of weeks — well, Weird Words has missed you too. It’s only busy-ness that’s kept our vocabulary studies on hiatus; but here at last, we’re ready to conclude our three-part look at the works and words of Patrick O’Brian. He’s the author behind the beloved Aubrey-Maturin novels
Last week, Webb’s “Weird Words” celebrated a major milestone with our 100th vocabulary column. That somewhat self-indulgent piece comprised a description of my weekly writing process; but it also mentioned another recent milestone: Sometime in the past month or so, the running master-doc—the one from which I draw my lists each week—managed to cross 3,000
Last week, Webb’s Weird Words attempted an April Fools’ column consisting entirely of made-up words. No idea how many readers fell for that — but my spurious list included one whimsical monetary unit: the fictitious praq, supposedly used in the fake former Soviet republic, “Ziurtzybad.” Now if you swallowed that one, don’t feel bad; “praq”
Sometime in the next few days, TV listings and internet sites will begin to burst with Christmas-film suggestions. But before we get swept away in a flood of Scrooges, wonderful lives and Red Ryder BB guns, how about a few films for Thanksgiving? Here’s a six-course movie-meal for the upcoming holiday: Planes, Trains and Automobiles
As Webb’s “Weird Words” hits its 15th installment, here’s a personal question for vocab-loving readers: Just how many words do you think you know? For that matter, how many words does the English language actually have? Wanna take a guess before I tell you? Well, various online sources indicate the average American is familiar with
We are at No. 14 in these ongoing columns about oddball vocabulary; so here are 14 more weird words for your week. These are, incidentally, all nouns unless otherwise noted; and since most have fairly instinctive pronunciation, I left that out too, except where needed. Arsole – While it sounds indecent and is not listed
