There were certainly a lot of weird words on page 21 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! It’s not surprising that I didn’t know “balneal” and “balneology” since they have to do with bathing. But it is surprising that I didn’t know “bandog,” given my interest in people breading dogs to be vicious. But instead, I picked the word “baldachin.”

Baldachin Is Not Banal

On page 21 there was a word most literate people know well: banal. A question that has been much debated during my life is how this word should be pronounced. The fact that such a debate should stand out in my life certainly says much about the kind of life I’ve led. But up until I was in college, it never occurred to me that anyone would pronounce it other than “bənäl.” But no. There were lots of people who pronounced it “bānəl.”

What’s interesting is that with a hard-a, the word sounds rather aggressive. And the people who preferred it were quite aggressive on the matter. The people who preferred the more laid-back pronunciation tended to be more laid-back in general. “Banal” still strikes me as a laid-back word. If one wished to be aggressive, one would just exclaim, “Boring!” And that would be that.

The Dying Hard-A of Banal

Apparently, the whole hard-a “banal” is an American thing. Oxford doesn’t even mention that pronunciation in its definition of banal. But even Merriam-Webster lists this pronunciation third — with “loser” in parentheses after it. (I’m just kidding about the “loser” part.) My bet is that this pronunciation is falling out of favor because it just sounds silly.

Anyway, enough of that. On to “baldachin.”

How uninspiring was page 20 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! Over a quarter of it was given over to bacteria related words: bactericide, bacteriology, bacteriolysis, bacteriophage, bacterioscopy, bacteriostasis, bacteriostat, bacteroid, and bacteroides. I won’t insult your intelligence by defining any of them for you. But it does rather make me wish I had become a bacteriologist. I’m really not that interested in bacteria, and maybe it is best to go into a field that you don’t much care about. Lay bare the meaning of life — or lack thereof.

More Grammar: Bahuvrihi

The word I’ve picked for today is one that relates to my chosen profession: bahuvrihi. But I didn’t pick it because I was terribly interested in it. It’s just that the two other words I found more interesting didn’t have as much information available. The first was “baculine.” That is an adjective that relates to the cane or rod used to beat people — usually children — as punishment. I’ve always found that kind of fascinating given that I was not beaten as a child. A raised eyebrow was generally enough to get me hiding under the bed. But if not, yelling certainly worked.

The second word was “bagatelle.” That one would have been fun because the book provides three different definitions: an unimportant triffle; a short, light piece of music; and a game that is like billiards played on an oblong board. This is indicative of specialized words. They lose much of their power when they are thusly ghettoized. Poor bagatelle!

So we are left with a little linguistics: bahuvrihi.

We have arrived on page 19 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition. And that means we have reached the Bs! I’m all done with the As. Just 25 more letters to go! Today’s B word is: bacchanal.

Bacchanal is an odd word in the sense that I kind of think I already knew it. There’s so much sloshing around in the chemical soup that is my brain that it’s hard to tell. But I knew I had to pick the word because its definition contained the words “drunken” and “orgy.” Now personally, I drink the way God intended: alone. But from a writing perspective, you can’t go wrong with those two words.

Boring Besides Bacchanal

This page contained a lot of words and phrases I knew: backbencher and backward, for example. But it also contained way too many bacci- words. These all have to do with berries. Are you a plant that yields berries? Then you are bacciferous! Are you shaped like a berry? Then you are bacciform! Do you feed on berries? Then you are baccivorous. (If you feed on picnic baskets, you are yogivorous, but that will have to wait for a later day.)

There was one really cool word: babbitt. That’s “a complacent person who conforms unthinkingly to middle-class standards.” Although I didn’t know the word, I was pretty sure that it was a reference to the Sinclair Lewis novel, Babbitt. So there’s that.

But I chose sex and drugs over literature: baccanal.

We have landed on page 18 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition. It was a difficult page, because it contained only one non-jargon word I didn’t know. But it is a good one: autonym.

The reason page 18 was so bad was that it was not a full page. This is because it was the last page in the A section. And it makes me wonder. Am I really going to continue to do this for well over a year longer. The last page of Z is 410. So I’m looking at about 13 months. The very idea of it frightens me.

Doing these Odd Words posts is hard. It isn’t that the work itself is hard, though. I liken it to imaginary numbers in math. When I first learned of imaginary numbers, I disliked them. And all through my studies, I was filled with dread whenever I had to deal with them. They were never a problem. But they felt like they were a problem. These posts are like that. I think it’s just knowing I have to deal with upside down e characters and umlauts and various other things that just aren’t on my keyboard.

But enough of my whining.

Finding My Autonym

One of my great failings as a human being is being overly honest. For many things I have written in the past, I should have used a pseudonym. But I didn’t because of my open nature and my extreme naivete when it comes to the way people react to things outside their comfort zone. On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about people discovering my autonym. Not that I don’t play around with my first name because, let’s face it, most people are far too self-involved to spend more than a couple of seconds researching me. (And they are right to be so disinterested!)

But I do think this is an excellent word: autonym.

I was feeling pretty ignorant as I perused page 17 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition. But you know how it is: words clump. But I found a great word that all my atheist friends will like: auto-da-fé.

I’m finding putting these posts together easier since I started using a highlighter. In general, I treat books very well. Truly, I think there is something sacred about a book. But this one is in very bad shape. It was clearly left in the sun for a long time, because the pages are crumbling. What’s more, they are dark, and so hard to read. Interestingly though, the binding is great. As a result of that, I originally didn’t want to soil it with marks. But that seems absurd now considering that I’ve been using the brittle cover for a bookmark from the start.

Burning for Words Beside Auto-da-fé

As I said, there were a number of words I didn’t know. There was “attrahent” — which means attracting or drawing toward.

I suppose I should have known “attrite,” given the word “attrition.” But who thinks in these ways? But I really should have known “austral” — which means relating to the south. I think we get words like Australia and Australopithecus from the same root. I just never thought about it.

On the other hand, I don’t blame myself for not knowing “auscultate” — which is listening to internal organs via a stethoscope. Who would have thought there would be a word for that? The same goes for “autochthonous” — which describes people who are native to a region rather than migrating there. Just the same, we are all migrants. It’s just that we like to have words to describe the people who got wherever earlier.

But I’m sure you are on fire to get to today’s word, auto-da-fé:

Page 15 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition gave me a lot to work with. But the words are hard. I think I need to get the Oxford Dictionary that has four pages per physical page along with a magnifying glass. As it is, Merriam-Webster wants to sell me a subscription so I can get the information that real word people need. Today, we have: asomatous.

Asomatous and So Much More

Before we move on to our word, there were a number of good ones. Because of yesterday, I couldn’t us “armomancy.” That is foretelling the future through the use of shoulder bones of animals. Who would have thought? I assume this was at one time even more popular than Taylor Swift. The word “arrack” is a group of hard liquors that are distilled from molasses. Didn’t even know there was such a thing. And here’s a word for our time: arriviste. That’s someone who became rich through unscrupulous means. So Donald Trump is not an arriviste, since he just inherited his money and then lost much of it considering opportunity costs.

Anyway, on to asomatous:

Page 14 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition was hard. It wasn’t that there weren’t a lot of words that I didn’t know. But they were so obscure that they were hard to research. That was even true of today’s word: arithmancy.

I really wanted to go with “apposite” (an easy one) today. But that would require breaking the rules, since I am very much aware of the word. But I would never use it. I think it confuses people in conversation. Most think you have mispronounced “opposite.” And that isn’t apposite at all!

Beyond Arithmancy

One really cool word was “arcifinious.” It is a word that describes a location with geographical boundary that also serves as a defense. So, for example, a country might be acrifinious because of a mountain range or a river. Then there is a similar word that brings war to mind, “armipotent.” It means being powerful in battle. Neither of these words — nor a few others — are in regular online dictionaries.

But here is arithmancy:

Page 13 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition kind of sucked. I thought it might be a page where I knew all the words. But it turned out to be just a clump at the beginning of the page.

Just the same, there are already days that I think this series was a very bad idea. I’m pretty skeptical today because I didn’t have a great deal to work with. And today, we have a word that is about grammar. I suppose that isn’t such a bad thing. It’s helpful to me to know these obscure words to describe how sentences work. I’m just not sure how interested you all are. Then again, since when have I cared what you all think? (Actually: all the time — especially when I’m writing something I know you aren’t interested in. Sorry, but it’s for your own good!)

Beyond Apodosis

So what do we have besides “apodosis” to make your life interesting? There is “apopemptic,” which is an adjective that describes the act of leaving — apparently in an official sense. And there is “apothegm,” which is a pithy saying, which I guess makes it different enough from “aphorism” to make it worth while (it’s more general). Finally, there is “apperceive,” which is to be conscious of perception. That’s a good one because so much of my life is habit. Did I take my thyroid medication today? I try to be very conscious of it so I don’t wonder all day. Of course, I could buy one of those daily pill boxes, but why? I can just work on apperceiving it.

But here is apodosis:

You will note that the definition above is not correct. the apodosis usually starts with “then,” but not always. I just thought you would want to know, given how much you are likely to use the word.

Page 12 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition was even worse than page 11. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Page 11 had the ante- words; page 12 thus had the anti- words. But I picked a word that came in between: anthropophagi.

Not Really Anthropophagi

Before we get to the word, I suppose I should point out that the word should not be “anthropophagi.” It should be “anthropophaguses.” This business has got to stop! We take English language words that are based on Greek words and create plurals based on Latin grammar?! What’s with that?! The Greek word isn’t “anthropophagus” anyway; it is “ανθρωποφάγος”! And where Latin fits in, I can’t say.

An unrelated issue: “antihero” is on the same page. The book claims that such a character lacks all heroic attributes and noble qualities. That was doubtless how the word was originally used. But by the time this dictionary came out, it was not used in that way at all.

Anyway, on to anthropophagi:

Note that anthropophagus is normally used for folklore cannibals, as in the image above.

Page 11 of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition is another with a lot of known prefixes and thus not a lot of unknown words. Still, I found an interesting one: anomie.

Beyond Anomie: The Ante- Words

There were a couple of words that I knew on seeing them, but didn’t know existed. One was “antepartum” — the other side of postpartum. Although it doesn’t just mean before childbirth, but right before childbirth. I suppose that is because we have a general word for before childbirth: pregnant.

Another such word was “antepenult.” Since penultimate is the second to the last, antepenult is the one before that: the third to the last. I might have grabbed that word, but it is specially used to refer to syllables in a word. And I don’t want to make this series about odd words just odd words about words.

Thus, I picked anomie:

Most definitions do not mention an “uprooted” people. And thus, it seems like like a great word for modern America — and to a lesser degree the western world. I blame it on Ayn Rand and the Masters of the Universe who came after — the whole “greed is good” crowd. People who think they own nothing to their society will eventually tear it apart.

Onward to page ten of The New York Times Everyday Reader’s Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, and Mispronounced Words: Revised Edition! There were a number of good words on this page. But I picked the very first one: analects.

But first, let’s take a quick look at some of the other words. There was “anamnesis.” This is memories of a past life. Like I remember when I was Mary Wollstonecraft, and just as I finished A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, I thought, “They’re only going to remember Tommy Paine!” There was also “anchorite,” which is a religious recluse. On seeing it, I knew what “androcracy” meant. But I don’t remember ever seeing it. Why would we need it? It’s like a fish needing a word for water. There’s also “anechoic,” which is something that is very important in building stadiums and such. There were also some medical words, which I would describe, but I just can’t stop yawning.

Analects

This is another literary word, which does not make me yawn. Other than being a word that I have a hard time imagining ever needing, it’s interesting in that it is almost always used as a plural. “Analect” is also a word. But it is almost never used. I assume that this is because one would just use the word “quotation.” Oh my! Did I just spoil the surprise? Well, read on anyway.

Here’s the definition of “analects”:

And just because of the assonance, I thought of this song: