I
t’s good to have modern computers around that can scan thou-
sands of lines of text in a jiffy and provide quick fixes with their
handy find-and-replace feature. I heard there was a story in a news-
paper that talked about the dramatic turnaround of a business. It
had been deeply in debt earlier but now it was “running in the
African American.”
While these electronic beasts are useful to keep our wayward
fingers in check and take care of sundry typos that creep in, they are
no substitute for humans. Here are a few words that defeat the
spell-checker. You could use them to your advantage: to defeat
your opponents in a game of Scrabble. These words appear to be
misspellings of common words but they are fully accredited,
licensed, certificated words from a standard dictionary—as official
as any word can be in the English language.
passible (PAS-uh-buhl)
adjective Capable of feeling, especially pain or suffering; suscepti-
ble to sensation.
18
CHAPTER 4
Words That Appear
to Be Misspellings
of Everyday Words I
cmp01.qxd 7/21/05 12:12 PM Page 18
From Middle English, from Middle Latin passibilis,from Latin
passus, past participle of pati (to suffer).
● “Only the most sensitive of seats in the thinnest of pants worn
by the most passible of owners will detect differing harmonies
of the Accords.”
—Los Angeles Times
monestrous (mon-ES-truhs)

and twenty feather beds upon which she slept one night.
cmp01.qxd 7/21/05 12:12 PM Page 19
● “A senator can challenge legislation by staging a filibuster, a
maneuver to block action on an item by controlling the Senate
floor for an unlimited time. A filibuster can be ended through
legislative agreement,or by invoking cloture, which requires 60
votes. The Senate is evenly split, with 50 Republicans and 50
Democrats.”
—New York Times
nutriment (NOO-truh-ment, NYOO-)
noun A substance that provides nourishment; food.
From Middle English, eventually from Latin nutrimentum,from
nutrire (to nourish).
● “In order for oral consumption—or the lack thereof—to
become our God, nutriment itself must reach a transcendent
status. So here’s the latest gastrosophical gospel: Food is no
longer food. Food is a drug.”
—Harper’s Magazine
assoil (uh-SOIL)
verb tr. 1. To pardon. 2. To atone for.
From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin absolvere (to
absolve).
● Jonah
“I sank my teeth into the salt ground.
There was no cry. Only later,
when the city put on sackcloth
and starved its cattle, I heard something—
a hiss of pity rising from the dry,
ungathered grain. An assoiling sound.”
—Barbara J. Orton, Fairleigh Dickinson Literary Review

CHAPTER 5
Archaic Words
cmp01.qxd 7/21/05 12:12 PM Page 21
sennight (SEN-yt)
noun A week.
From Middle English, from Old English seofon nihta,from seofon
(seven) + nihta, plural of niht (night).
A cousin of this word is “fortnight.”Twice as long as a sennight,
it’s a compressed form of “fourteen night.”
● “Midweek of May’s third sennight has passed and there remains
only a fortnight before the blowing of the June roses.”
—New York Times
anon (uh-NON)
adverb 1. At another time. 2. Soon. 3. At once; immediately
(archaic).
From Middle English, from Old English on an (in one).
● “Anon, King Hamlet discovers his brother’s perfidy. Threatened
with banishment, poverty, and disgrace, Claudius poisons the
king, promptly marries Gertrude, and assumes the Danish
crown.”
—The Economist
22
ANOTHER WORD A DAY
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
—
C
ARL
S
AGAN
, astronomer and author (1934–1996)