Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” does not contain the letter Z.
Language
In a Word
quinquiplicate
v. to multiply by five
In a Word
illeist
n. one who refers to oneself in the third person
In a Word
ruricolous
adj. living in the country or in fields
Spinout
RACECAR spelled backward is RACECAR.
In a Word
tecnolatry
n. worship or idolization of children
Harry S? Truman
You can start fights among copyeditors by asking them how to punctuate Harry Truman’s name.
The 34th president had no middle name — just the letter S. So the question is, do you add a period afterward? Purists say no, it’s not an abbreviation. Pragmatists say yes, if you omit the period then some readers will stop at the “error.”
Truman himself usually signed his name with a period, but he once remarked that it should be omitted. That’s why, to this day, some newspapers refer to him as Harry S Truman.
In a Word
vicambulate
v. to walk about in the streets
Longest English Word
The longest word in the English language is FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION.
It means “the act of estimating (something) as worthless.”
Hapax Legomenon
A hapax legomenon is a word that occurs only once in a given body of text:
- NORTELRYE (“education”) was used only by Chaucer, and only once.
- AUTOGUOS, an ancient Greek word for “plow,” was used only once, in Hesiod.
- FLOTHER, a charming synonym for “snowflake,” appears only once in written English before 1900 (in a manuscript from around 1275).
- PIM, a stone weight of about a quarter ounce, appears only once in Biblical Hebrew (1 Samuel 13:20).
HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS appears only once in Shakespeare’s works (in Love’s Labour’s Lost). Probably a good thing.