The Right Word

These innocent-seeming quizzes invariably have a tricky twist, like how the six W's (who, what, where, when, why, and how) actually include an H.  Days That End in Y by Vikki VanSickle.

"Often in a wooden house a golden room you find."  From Manual and Diagrams to Accompany Metcalf's Grammars, 1901.

"I will call it Comsognathus Obtusidens Blinksis."

Ghost of the Victim: "Well!  That's rough on me."

From Life, 1900

By the time he signs his message, Colonel Jambuel Q. Stoopalaya is transformed into Col. Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle.  We also appreciate the references to Mr. F. R. Q. J. H. Feltoph Randus and to the dose of bromo-seltzer named Herman.  From Tulane's 1933 yearbook.

We thought this mild oath, "Judas' cats," was one we'd somehow missed along the way, but a search indicates that it's extraordinarily rare.  From the University of Western Ontario's 1930 yearbook.

The long-held gambits and counters are finally revealed, so that anyone can one-up the greatest scoundrels of all: magicians.  It's all in Upmanship Tricks: Secrets of One-Upping Magicians.

Good to see an all-consonant word defined.  This particular word has been exploded (presumably by the cold).  From Woroni, 1988.  See Webster's Dictionary of Improbable Words: All-Consonant and All-Vowel Words.

"Cousened" is an obsolete version of "cozened," so the conjurer is himself tricked.  From Poets' Wit and Humor by W. H. Wills and illustrated by Charles Bennett and George H. Thomas, 1860.

"Those things which are said to be done by Nature are done by Divine Art."  From Manual and Diagrams to Accompany Metcalf's Grammars, 1901.

This old sentence diagram could be printed as a talisman for wealth-building.  The sentence is even numbered "3," giving it triple potency.  May it work to give you more money than you know what to do with.  From Hoenshel's Complete English Grammar, 1897.

Long before Google Translate, text still came out this way.  From Woroni, 1984.

For those looking for a drag name, "Tuck Fexas."  From the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville's 1973 yearbook.

"I am walking youward."  Note also the "Please" sign amongst the flowers.  From Mary Washington's 1972 yearbook.

It's hardly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  "Bogle and Eckliff should be interchanged."  From Michigan's 1919 yearbook.

Here's the word "apricklededee" in the wild.  From "The Great Hug" by Donald Barthelme, in Folio, Jan, 1976.

Having a good sense of rhythm is not required for having "rhtyum."  From Belmont Abbey's 1987 yearbook.

To this day, the word "innirtible" is a Googlewhack.  Thinking oneself more innirtible than anyone else, the article suggests, is a trait shared by all college men. From The Current Sauce, 1956.

A word of caution: the Grim Reaper appears at the end of this:

"Leaves have their time to fall, and flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, and stars to set; but all, thou has all seasons for thine own, O Death." 

From Manual and Diagrams to Accompany Metcalf's Grammars, 1901.

Reblog if you, too, are still resisting abstractionism.  From Dark Shadows episode 133.

Wait -- I know this.  Mustachioed, mustard, and mustiness.  Oh yeah, must-read, must-see, and must-have.  That's six.  This book says there are 6,000 must words.  I hate to question that number, since folks initially doubted that I'd collected 1,000 one-letter words for One-Letter Words: A Dictionary.