As with oatmeal cookies, pints of beer, and bags of wine gums, I keep coming back to them. Can’t really stay away long. Oh, I go graphic as often as I can and audio too. But words whistle me in quite regularly in these Friday Fillips. And here I am again banging on about words.
Only last April [1] I “bloviated” about “swale” and “decrement.” A kind reader, Paul Dawson, suggested that if I liked odd words that much I might enjoy the website World Wide Words [2]. I did. I do. And now you might, too.
It’s the work — well, one of them at least — of Michael Quinion [3], an Englishman who opines on international English and particularly on its peculiarities.
You can get into the fun of the site in many ways. There’s his alphabetically ordered “questions and answers [4],” or his lists of “topical words [5],” “turns of phrase [6],” and “weird words [7].” Or you might simply confront the large “complete index [8].” However you do it, you’ll come up against such lovelies as tripudiate [9] [Take that, Ms. Palin!], lexiphanic [10], and clinquant [11].
There’s also a link to a sub-site [12] based on a book by Quinion that explores the “affixes” that help construct English — the (very) many prefixes, suffixes, and infixes we use. A lot of these are Greek to you. And me. Sphygm(o)– the pulse, hygr(o)– moisture or humidity, nepho– cloud… There’s a thematic index of these word bits, but, as is common, there’s no heading for law.
So if you’re ever at a loss for words, head on over to Word Wide Words [2]. You can subscribe to Quinion’s free weekly newsletter and never have words fail you again.