Wordwizard

# 17 reminds me of a recent episode of "The Simpsons," wherein Marge told Bart to "run like the wind," except she pronounced it "wined." When Lisa corrected her, Marge said, "I've only ever seen it written."

But I think all of you--especially those of you from the UK--are forgetting an important word: How do you pronounce "Bucket," Hyacinth??????

Locals often call Kankakee, Illinois "K-3," so I guess the residents could be "K-Thirds."

I have my own name for residents of my adopted hometown, Springfield. The "official" name is Springfieldians, but I like mine better. Around here, one of the more common ways to abbreviate Springfield is "Spfld." I use that shortened name to call anyone who lives here a "Spfldian," which I pronounce...

I can't believe that we haven't yet heard from Bob in Wales on this subject. I'd love to know what the residents of that mile-long-named Welsh town (Llanfair . . . or something like that) are called. My guess is they're called Sesquipedalians! Bob, can you confirm?

All this talk about unusual place names and names for the residents reminds me of a story from my home state. To understand this, you have to realize that Illinois has some very unusual place names. For example, there is Normal, Illinois (home of Illinois State University). (Would the residents be c...

Actually, I think for all the "dumb" jokes (jokes about people perceived by others as dumb, not "dumb jokes"), we could simply take a page from Scott Adams (Dilbert's creator): in the DNRC (Dogbert's New Ruling Class) newsletter, Dogbert refers to all non-DNRC members as "induhviduals"! Each newslet...

Meirav, actually, the soft pretzels are not quite bagels (we have those, too), but they have a similar consistency. The pretzels are a little less "chewy" than bagels, though, and they are twisted into the familiar "knot" shape. I found this link to Auntie Anne's Pretzels: www.auntieannes.com This s...

Meirav, we have those bagged, salty, crunchy, addictive pretzels here, too. But we also have "soft pretzels," which are a much larger version that are more bread-like. They are often sold at malls (around here, we have "Auntie Anne's Pretzels"). They are about 5" around, and you can buy them plain (...

Along the lines of Alastair Cooke's anecdote: When I was in college, one of the guys in my dorm had a girlfriend who was, to be blunt, ugly. (Her name was Pam, but several of us would call her "Spam" when he wasn't around.) One day, he was showing off a new picture of her. About 4 of us in a row mad...

I don't think that substituting "person" for "man" goes far enough. After all, the last part of "person" is "son," which is clearly a masculine term. A gender neutral substitution for "son" would be "offspring"; therefore, I think we should use the TRULY unisex "peroffspring" in place of "man"! Don'...

Growing up in south-central Illinois, it was always "mowing the yard"; we never "mowed the lawn." But the device we used was always a "lawn mower," never a "yard mower"!

Personally, I'd re-write it to say this: "As you instructed, I am enclosing a copy of the document." That seems less stuffy, and it conveys the intended message just as clearly.

Ann other mosquito, of course!!!

Great to hear from you, too, Lois. I still frequent this site, but I don't often contribute; I'm more of a lurker now. (It's not because I don't have anything meaningful to add to the discussions--I'm not sure I ever did!--it's just too much bother sometimes to post a reply. I must be getting lazy i...