by Harold Fox

Longer term readers^[1] of "Calling All Verbivores"(CAV) are certainly acquainted with Richard Lederer. He is the person who coined the word "verbivore," and he is one of my heroes, so I sometimes refer to him in CAV. He is the author of Anguished English, Crazy English, More Anguished English, and A Man of My Words, among many others. He is also the proprietor of the website, Richard Lederer’s Verbivore. On the most recent visit there, I found that his most recent book is Presidential Trivia: the Feats, Fates, Families, Foibles, and Firsts of our American Presidents, published in 2008 by Gibbs Smith. I have recommended his website in more than one preceding number of CAV. You may consider this another such recommendation.Richard Lederer’s Verbivore has an extensive listing of language sites on the Internet. I want to call a few of them to your attention. Perhaps you would find one or more of those interesting and entertaining. Their order of appearance is not intended to be a ranking.

The first one is Etymologic: The Toughest Word Game on the Web. This site presents you with the challenge of identifying the etymology of words in multiple choice format. You receive an immediate "right" or "wrong" and the correct answer if your response was wrong. Then the game confronts you with the next word. It also displays a running score of correct answers. In my first try I got half of the words right. My next effort was more successful, but I’m demanding a recount.

Next consider Word Spy: The Word Lover’s Guide to New Words. This site lists new words or phrases with a definition and a paragraph that describes the usage. The following is an example of one such listing:

shovel-ready
adj. Relating to a construction site or project that can be used or started right away. Also: shovel ready.
Nearly every economist who spoke here agreed that a dollar invested in, say, a new transit system or in bridge repair is spent and respent more efficiently than a dollar that comes to a household in a tax cut. A bigger percentage of the latter is saved, they said. There was concern, however, that the nation lacked enough ‘shovel ready‘ projects that could be ramped up quickly, generating jobs.
—Louis Uchitelle, " Economists Warm to Government Spending but Debate Its Form," The New York Times, January 7, 2009

Another site listed by Lederer is Ask A Linguist  (sic.) Its self-description is this:

Ask A Linguist is designed to be a place where anyone interested in language or linguistics can ask a question and get the response of a panel of professional linguists.

LINGUIST List members are professional, academic linguists with a variety of particular interests, from whose number come 33 (at the time of this writing) who volunteer to respond to the questions submitted. The names of these volunteers are displayed with the institutional identification of each. Questions or topics are displayed as links, with the name of the asker and the date of the submission. Each topic (link) is followed by a list of links to the responses from the panel, each link identified by the name of the respondent and the date of the response. For example, at this time two responses appearing sequentially are these:

"’bl’ as a root for words relating to speech?"  – Bill Wertheim (Jan-14-2009)
         and
"The role of linguistics in the world" – Alexis Nava Teodoro (Jan-08-2009)

Each of these is, at this time, followed by a list of six respondent links.

A final example, for now, is worthless word for the day   Today’s listing, at this time, is the following:

today’s wwftd is…the worthless word for the day is: cacozelia [Gk kakozelia: unhappy imitation; affectation]/kako ZEEL i a/ studied affectation in diction or style, as in a speech filled with pedantic latinisms and inkhorn terms (not to be confused with lalochezia?)

This site mixes just plain fun with opportunities for learning. Enjoy both!

Let me leave you with a teaser from one of the Lederer list of language sites, which I will not identify until I supply the answer in the next number of CAV.

The letters of the phrase CORRECT ANSWERS can be rearranged to make two words, each of which names a vegetable you might find in the produce section of a supermarket. What are they?

*If you want to know where you fit in the list of "long term readers," consider that this number of CAV happens to be #50. Thanks for your attention.

Until next time, send me your solutions (or suggestions or complaints or stumpers) at hfox@juno.com or 2005 Burroughs Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406.