to continue the correspondence which evolved from the entry on prayer: I note in eberntson's reply the word "esponge." I have not met this spelling before. I use the word "expunge" to denote material which has been marked for deletion in a manuscript. The word comes from puncta, ...

I have a suspicion that 'soporate' comes from the same mixing bowl as 'verbalize'.............I actually overheard one doting mother of a year-old boy boasting to another, lesser mortal, mother: "My little Edward verbalised today!"....... by which I take it that he achieved something along...

and in reply to skinem: in any one location, the prevailing political system does not usually last much longer than the lifetime of the average cow anyway. The bull can have intermittent status and can be brought in by any government whenever a scapegoat (scapebull?) is required to take the blame fo...

The bovine explanations are wonderful - I have copied them to show to our Business Studies students. Thank you.
ClaireM in Liverpool

And what about ventriloquy - speaking with the stomach, or rather, "spikking viz ze ztomak"! as instructed by the trainers of operatic singers the world over.
from ClaireM in Liverpool

Please can I query the following which are in the upper echelons of freerice (I have rating 54). (1) You have written 'Celadine' whereas in England this yellow spring flower is known as 'Celandine' and the OED has only this spelling, as does Random House dictionary. (2) The stones, such as some of t...

Who was/is Edwin P. Whipple? That's a cute quote.
ClaireM.

To continue the discussion regarding tyke: I have just looked at the little flurry of responses to my message about tyke/urchin etc. There was some misunderstanding, because I made reference to the word 'dyke' - an adult female of dubious sexual preference, and it is these people who go to the bars....

Is anyone out there making a dictionary of the somewhat incomprehensible language used by 12-18 year olds when composing e-mails and text-messages to their friends? I know that the main rule is to miss out vowels as much as possible, and to use emoticons like there is no tomorrow, but beyond that it...

In English the word "tyke" has a regional distribution. Up here in the northwest it means a naughty pesky small boy, an urchin, a ragamuffin, usually to be found at the site of any unusual activity, crime, drama, where there is a large hole in the road, where an accident has occurred, wher...

In medieval times and in both medieval Latin and medieval French the word "accrochiament" implied the extending of one's occupation of land to cover a plot on which one did not have proper rights. Areas set aside for the King to hunt across, turbaries (places where peat was dug) and portio...

Hello I am Claire and I am a new visitor to your site. I went into Dr. Goodword's Office and followed a couple of the "confused words" quizzes. I am certain that the word you have as "viscuous" should be "viscous" which leads to the related word "viscosity" et...