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LANGUAGE HUMOR AT ITS FINEST
Making yourself more proficient in English need not be a drag. You can actually speed up the learning process and make it fun by generously lacing it with humor—but preferably the best that the English language can offer.
In this new section, apart from giving a fixed slot to our weekly “In a Lighter Vein” pop-out humor piece in the Forum homepage, we have put together the finest of those weekly humor pop-ups since the Forum started. The best of them—collected from various sources on the web and sent in by friends—are all here, posted in the Forum under the following headings: Wordplay, On the Job, Student and School Life, and Miscellany.
So if you missed any of the best of the Forum’s weekly humor pop-ups, you can enjoy and savor them again and again here—and better still, share them with your friends!
Click here to go to the board (requires registration to post)
26 Weird English Words from A to Z
By Theresa Dold
Have you ever worn winklepickers or salopettes? Is the saying about French women and their oxters true? Do your friends complain that you bibble too much? Have you ever experienced zoanthropy and been convinced you were an elephant?
If you’re confused as to how to answer any – or all – of these questions, never fear! We’ve created this confusion, and we’re here to clear it up with this alphabetical list of 26 weird English words and their meanings.
agastopia
n. – admiration of a particular part of someone’s body
bibble
v. – to drink often; to eat and/or drink noisily
cabotage
n. – coastal navigation; the exclusive right of a country to control the air traffic within its borders
NOT: v. – to sabotage with cabbage and/or Vermont Cabot Cheese
doodle sack
n. – old English word for bagpipe
erinaceous
adj. – of, pertaining to, or resembling a hedgehog
Although she won’t know what it means, never, ever tell your date Erin that she is “looking quite erinaceous this evening.”
firman
n. – in Turkey and some other Oriental countries, a decree or mandate issued by the sovereign
gabelle
n. – a tax on salt
halfpace
n. – a platform of a staircase where the stair turns back in exactly the reverse direction of the lower flight
impignorate
v. – to pawn or mortgage something
NOT: v. – to impregnate a pig
jentacular
adj. – pertaining to breakfast
kakorrhaphiophobia
n. – fear of failure
This is the last word that someone with kakorrhaphiophobia would want to encounter in a spelling bee.
lamprophony
n. – loudness and clarity of enunciation
macrosmatic
adj. – having a good sense of smell
nudiustertian
n. – the day before yesterday
NOT: n. – a martian nudist
oxter
n. – outdated word meaning “armpit”
NOT: n. – a creature that is half ox, half otter
pauciloquent
adj. – uttering few words; brief in speech
If you had to figure out how to use this word in context, you probably wouldn’t say much either.
quire
n. – two dozen sheets of paper
ratoon
n. – small shoot growing from the root of a plant
NOT: n. – the offspring of interbreeding rats and raccoons
salopettes
n. – high-waisted skiing pants with shoulder straps
tittynope
n. – a small quantity of something left over
Undoubtedly the biggest eyebrow-raiser on this list!
ulotrichous
adj. – having wooly or crispy hair
First time you’ve heard this word? It’s probably a good indication that you don’t have wooly or crispy hair. Or that you do, and nobody uses this word anymore.
valetudinarian
n. – a sickly or weak person, especially one who is constantly and morbidly concerned with his or her health
Think – “the valedictorian of hypochondriacs”
winklepicker
n. – style of shoe or boot in the 1950s with a sharp and long pointed toe
A close second to “tittynope” in the eyebrow-raiser category
xertz
v. – to gulp down quickly and greedily
yarborough
n. – hand of cards containing no card above a nine
zoanthropy
n. – delusion of a person who believes himself changed into an animal
—From a collection in voxy.com
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