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  • The World of Weird Words0

    By Joseph W. Smith III Last week, I celebrated the 10th “Weird Words” column with a selection of 10-letter terms. Having thus observed my minor milestone, this week’s installment is devoted to something without which I could never do these pieces: the English dictionary. Back in pre-internet days, when folks always needed books or libraries

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  • The World of Weird Words

    The World of Weird Words0

    For me it was a glorious day in May when I emailed Steph Nordstrom — my estimable editor at Webb — with what I considered a long-shot: I was pitching a weekly column on oddball vocab words. To my everlasting joy, Steph okayed the idea without hesitation — telling me she’d read the dictionary just

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  • The World of Weird Words0

    In our last two installments, Webb’s Weird Words focused mostly on terms from medicine and India, as I was honoring Abraham Verghese’s current bestseller The Covenant of Water, which revolves around those two subjects. This week, we’re back in random mode: I simply pulled up the first of the 26 pages in my oddball vocab

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  • The World of Weird Words0

    Last week, Webb’s Weird Words paid homage to the current bestseller Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese. When all was said and done, I wound up adding nearly 40 new words from Verghese’s novel to the ongoing list of oddball vocab I use for these columns. Most were Indian or medical words, since the novel

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  • The World of Weird Words0

    As your friendly neighborhood lexicographer approaches another collection of weird words for Webb, Abraham Verghese’s novel “The Covenant of Water” stands at #5 on the New York Times bestseller list. Sales have been aided by the sterling success of Verghese’s earlier “Cutting for Stone,” which spent more than two years on the NYT roster —

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  • The World of Weird Words0

    As promised in last week’s Weird Words round-up, here comes another baker’s dozen from the sprawling list of oddball vocab I keep for these columns. Our theme for this pair of articles has been hyphenated terms — or shall I say “two-tiered”? Or maybe “double-barreled” — if that doesn’t seem too heavy-handed … or hoity-toity.

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