Things I Learned Today
(2nd in a very infrequent series)
The orange (you know: "a globose berry with a yellowish to reddish orange rind and a sweet edible pulp"--thank you, Merriam-Webster) used to be a "norange." How did the norange become orange? By a process called metathesis ("transposition of two phonemes in a word--as in the development of crud from curd"--M-W again). Like so:
a norange
morphed into
an orange
Voila! Thought you might like to know.
***
Oh, and by the way, since we're having fun with words, perhaps you'd also like to know the results of Merriam-Webster's poll, in which they asked people to name their ten favorite words. And the winners are:
1. defenestration
2. serendipity
3. onomatopoeia
4. discombobulate
5. plethora
6. callipygian
7. juxtapose
8. persnickety
9. kerfuffle
10. flibbertigibbet
Okay, but what about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?
The orange (you know: "a globose berry with a yellowish to reddish orange rind and a sweet edible pulp"--thank you, Merriam-Webster) used to be a "norange." How did the norange become orange? By a process called metathesis ("transposition of two phonemes in a word--as in the development of crud from curd"--M-W again). Like so:
a norange
morphed into
an orange
Voila! Thought you might like to know.
***
Oh, and by the way, since we're having fun with words, perhaps you'd also like to know the results of Merriam-Webster's poll, in which they asked people to name their ten favorite words. And the winners are:
1. defenestration
2. serendipity
3. onomatopoeia
4. discombobulate
5. plethora
6. callipygian
7. juxtapose
8. persnickety
9. kerfuffle
10. flibbertigibbet
Okay, but what about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?
posted by Bob Spencer | 6/05/2004
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2 Comments:
I have a few favorite words. Poppycock is one...not only because it has an interesting sound to it, but because you can say it in polite society. And ragamuffin, scalawag, vagabond are a few other favorites.
This comment is by rebecca again, but for some reason it isn't letting me post under my own name.
This is definately not my game. I can only partly guess what your second word means(only because I have a blogging friend who has a title like that), and the rest of the words I don't have a clue what they mean.
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