5
o
MAY WE HAVE A WORD?
L
et’s say you start thinking about words for particular mind-
sets or categories of things or bad situations or whatever—
and the next thing you know, you’re thinking about words.
Words for words, even. The spiral of mental activity (maybe
you’ve noticed) can narrow pretty quickly. Is there a word for
this—for thoughts that close in on themselves, leaving you won
-
dering whether you were thinking about anything at all?
Words about words are undeniably ethereal. To make matters
worse, many of the old words for words, or groups of them, have
fallen into disuse. We as a society would be better off, I swear, if
everyone knew what words like pronoun, adjective, and preposition
mean. I believe this because I find it nearly impossible to talk
about language and how it works its wonders without employing at
127
WORD FUGITIVES
least basic grammatical terms. If everyone had these down, we
could move on to complaining that nowadays no one understands
the likes of meiosis (“the use of understatement not to deceive, but
to enhance the impression on the hearer,” as H. W. Fowler ex
-
plains it in his Modern English Usage) and tmesis (“separation of the
parts of a compound word by another word inserted between
them”—for instance, un-freaking-believable).
Oh, the heck with it. Let’s not go there. Instead, let’s go find
some people who are actively looking for words for words and
want our help. As you’ll notice when you get to the “Still at Large”

Nononym was a popular suggestion. Some other possibilities
were errerr (Laura Markos, of Santa Fe, N.M.), sinonym (Felicia
Lincoln, of Kennet Square, Pa.), and doppelklanger (Philip Walker,
of Mississauga, Ontario). John Ford, of Coquitlam, British Co
-
lumbia, wrote, “Since bird-watching is called ornithology, why can’t
we call that kind of word-botching orthinology?”
For cleverness combined with aptness, however, nothing beat
illiteration. Of the three people who submitted this coinage,
Rocky Raab, of Ogden, Utah, was the first to do so.
129
WORD FUGITIVES

“We desperately need a short substitute for saying either
World Wide Web or double-u double-u double-u (mostly pro
-
nounced here in Texas ‘dub-ya dub-ya dub-ya’)! Please ad-
vise.”
—Sherri Walker Vail, Dallas
Eric Westby, of Boston, wrote: “I recall reading in Wired a while
ago that people, presumably in Silicon Valley, were saying triple-
dub. I can’t say it without feeling a little silly, though. I feel like I’m
trying to impress by being ‘in the know.’ ” (Update: triple-dub has
never caught on.) John Davenport wrote: “I have been hearing
wuh-wuh-wuh. It is much easier to say than dub-ya dub-ya dub-ya
and does not sound nearly as pretentious as triple-dub.” Jonathan
Gellman suggested wow, explaining: “This can be understood ei
-
ther as a universally accepted misspelling or as a synonym for
‘world of (the) Web.’ Jason Taniguchi, of Toronto, Ontario,

your lungs.’ You could say gesbaggenheit, meaning, ‘Here, put this
131
WORD FUGITIVES
bag over your head if you plan to keep doing that.’ You could say
gessockenstuffen, meaning, ‘Keep that up and I’m going to have to
gag you.’ You could say geskoffenmitschooten, meaning, ‘I’m sorry,
but if you keep doing that, I’ll have to put you out of your misery.’
You could say gesfatigenwheezin, meaning...”
My favorite possibility came from Suzanne Ellison, of An-
TWELVE OF ONE, A DOZEN OF THE OTHER
Which dozen of the following words about words are from
dictionaries, and which dozen aren’t?
Antapology:
a reply to an apology
Capoodle:
to speak in a strange language when petting small animals
Eblandish:
to get by coaxing or flattery
Eutrapely:
pleasantness in conversation
Exonym:
a name that foreigners use for a place
Gress:
(rare) to stick to the point during a family argument
Kapula:
in grammar, the reticulated participle, when juxtaposed transi -
tively with a split infinitive
Kyriolexy:
the use of literal expressions
Lexplexed:

Raw-gabbit:
speaking confidently on a subject of which one is ignorant
Sesquelingual:
short of bilingual, said of a person who speaks one lan-
guage well and “gets by” in a second
Stelliscript:
that which is written in the stars
Tashivation:
the art of answering without listening to questions
Traith:
that which is lost in translation
Twone:
a new name for portmanteau words:
two
words made into
one
Ziraleet:
an expression of joy
Zyxnoid:
any word that a crossword puzzler makes up to complete the
last blank
THE TWELVE AND THE DOZEN DISENTANGLED
The origins of our score plus four words about words.
Antapology
, for a reply to an apology, appears in
Weird and Wonderful
Words
and the
OED.
Capoodle

is
Florence
for
Firenze.
Gress
, for sticking to the point, appears in
The Deeper Meaning of Liff
.
Even so, it doesn’t seem to be a place-name anywhere in the world.
Kapula
, a pseudo-grammatical term, was coined for “A Volley of Words.”
Kyriolexy
, for the use of literal expressions, appears in
More Weird and
Wonderful Words
and the
OED.
Lexplexed
, for that dictionary-related Catch-22, appears in
Unexplained
Sniglets of the Universe.
Licorice books
was coined by Jean Matthews, according to her hus-
band, Russ Lawrence, of Chapter One Book Store, in Hamilton, Mont.
To clarify, Lawrence adds: “Think Chuck Palahniuk [the author of
Fight Club
] and his ilk.”
Nossob
is and means
not

contains
some hilarious examples of
Ollendorffian
English, including “Stop, the
postilion has been struck by lightning!” and “Unhand me, Sir, for my
husband, who is an Australian, awaits without.”
Paradiorthosis
, for a false correction, appears in
More Weird and Won-
derful Words
and the
OED.
Pertainym
, for an adjective defined with the phrase “of or pertaining to,”
appears in
More Weird and Wonderful Words
and online dictionaries.
Raw-gabbit
, for speaking confidently but ignorantly, appears in
A Scots
Dialectic Dictionary
(1911), according to
The Word Museum.
Sesquelingual
, to refer to vaguely bilingual people, was coined by George
Englebretsen, of Lennoxville, Quebec, as reported in
Family Words.
Stelliscript
, for what is written in the stars, appears in
A Supplemental

xltn
have also been reported.”
WORD FUGITIVES

“Many of my friends, family, and acquaintances use the
names of products as equivalent to their generic designa
-
tions: Kleenex for ‘facial tissues,’ Band-Aid for ‘bandage,’
Wite-Out for ‘typing-correction fluid,’ Xerox for ‘photocopy.’
While I am convinced there is a word for this process of a
trademark entering the vernacular, no one can tell me what it
is. Without access to a reverse dictionary, I don’t know if I’m
totally off base here. Perhaps you can tell me.”
—Gregory Altreuter, New York City
James Shull proposed: “Trademark synecdoche? Not terribly inventive
or clever, but serviceable.” Judy Lewis suggested logodoption. Michael
Fischer wrote: “Why don’t we try to make the word look like what it
means: xeroxidation? frigidarwinism? kleenextortion! (By the way,
would a person who coined such a word be called an ycleptomaniac?)”
Kristin Streck wrote: “There actually is a word for this. In
business law they call it generification (of a trademark or brand
name). In order to keep a copyright on the word, a company must
prove generification has not occurred and/or that the company has
taken reasonable steps to prevent it. This is why one sees ads that
say things like ‘You can’t make a Xerox, but you can make the best-
quality photocopy on a Xerox brand copier.’ ”
136
MAY WE HAVE A WORD?
An Internet search, however, suggests that generification is lit-
tle used in this sense. More often the word turns up in contexts