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A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia

I happened to come across this excellent Paul Dickson-like compilation from Jeff Miller, a teacher at Gulf High School in New Port Richey, Florida.

I’m also reminded of Tim Krabbé’s chess records page.

8 Comments

  1. This is fantastic. So much to enjoy here. Thank you for the link!

  2. Terry says:

    What a treasure trove of time-wasting trivia (“TTTT” or 4T)!

    My favorite so far:

    The earliest known use of OMG is in a 1917 correspondence from British Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher to Winston Churchill, wherein Fisher excitedly relayed the phrase to his former Royal Navy colleague: “I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)—Shower it on the Admiralty!!”

  3. Mark Palko says:

    Check out the Joy of Lex by Gyles Brandreth

  4. Not entirely related to chess, but Krabbe is the author of a beautiful and brilliant autobiographical novella about an amateur bicycle race in southern France, called The Rider. Strong recommend; you’ll read it in an hour or two.

  5. Anonymous says:

    PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS:

    The longest word in the English language is geologically related!

  6. Esad says:

    Entertaining…

    I find the the unambiguous construction of the genuine german word AASVOGEL in this collection rather beautiful, not ugly! (side: many german words have this property)

    Aas = carcass
    Vogel = bird
    => Aasvogel = vulture, scavenging bird

    On the other side, carcass with its meaning and associations is everything else but beautiful.
    Ugly associations and beautiful word :)

    it is hard to reason about beauty

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