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#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

I love those moments when you realize the stunningly obvious meaning of a word that you were somehow oblivious to your entire life, like “sour cream is *sour* cream!”🤯

George Johnson narrated one of those new connections for me this week and it made me super happy 😃

Nighty night! This had me thinking about the interesting linguistic practice of reduplication, the repetition of syllables, words, etc. This one is exact reduplication, but there‘s also rhyming (artsy-fartsy), ablaut (mishmash), sch- (fancy-schmancy), and others. Holy-moly!
#weirdwords #weirdwordWednesdays @CBee

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

Despite having inherited central heterochromia from my mother I seem to be completely incapable of learning the technical word for it, and looked it up for at least the 10th time when it appeared in my reading this week.

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

A word I come across often but only happened to look up for the first time this week. From context I‘d always taken it to mean something closer to acquiescence than quietude, so I was surprised to see the dictionary definition even though I expect I‘d find common ground for all 3 if I pulled out the OED.

I‘m not sure why but I was thinking about the word table this morning and how it can be used as a verb. I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if there‘s a word for when we make a noun a verb.” Sure enough! The rhetorical term is anthimeria. Incidentally, I love the example of “turtling down the road.”
#weirdwordWednesdays #weirdwords @CBee

#weirdwords #weirdwordwednesdays @CBee

I love this word! The closest equivalent we have in American English is “bum a smoke” which sounds offensive, and really only works for cigarettes.

#weirdwordwednesdays #weirdeords @CBee

My favorite word from my reading this week!

Today‘s #weirdword is for the birds. Gorget refers to a piece of armor protecting the throat, but it is also a common word to describe the patch of feathers on hummingbird necks. Having lived on the east coast of the US all my life, I have never seen any hummingbirds apart from the Ruby-throated, but I discovered the Cornell Lab Bird Cams the other day and now I‘m obsessed with watching them zoom and hover in all their iridescent splendor. ⬇️

I picked this book up for a bit of research on a short story I‘m writing and I‘m learning a lot (and becoming a bit more paranoid with each page). One cyber, or information, security term that came up is “zero-days.” These are flaws in software or hardware which make every user around the world vulnerable. They‘re named because the targets of attack have zero days to come up with a defense. These are scary! #weirdwords #weirdwordWednesdays
@CBee