"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Syzygy
Syzygy is the alignment of any three celestial bodies. For example, the Sun, Earth, and Moon - such that one body is directly between the other two, such as occurs at an eclipse.
My daughter Helen commented in November 2008 in her Blog that she was now keeping a notebook of new words that she came across during her reading. "This week I bought a lovely little leather bound book to write new words in as I read them . I've added a few from "1984", but my favourite has to be persiflage (from the French persifler) which means banter." I later discovered that my older daughter, Bryony, also kept a similar notebook.
This inspired me to create a Word blog. This will include both new words, favourite words and the origins of phrases that we commonly use. A definition and some comment, perhaps even a relevant quotation, will acompany the word or phrase.
“I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.” - Winnie the Pooh
I assume this word confers an automatic win in a game of Scrabble?
ReplyDeleteVery good, Archduchess, I'm sure it should but it might also result in a lot of argument unless you have a dictionary handy to prove it!
ReplyDeleteAs an interesting aside, what is the longest word with no 'true' vowel?
ReplyDelete