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We're often asked, "is it teepee or tepee?" You'll see tepee everywhere, but "popularity is only of temporary moment ... a vulgar struggling for supremacy" ( Chamber's Edinburgh Journal, 1849). Indeed, California's Wigwam Motel (on both the historic registry and alongside the ghostly vestiges of Route 66) spells it teepee. That's surely definitive. For further proof, we offer our own graphical evidence (heehee).
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Here's a trick for spelling Constantinople:
It's a C and an I and a constanti, and a steeple and a stople and a constantinople.
—Rupert Hughes, Gift Wife, 1910
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Today we call them "paranormal investigators," "ghost hunters," or Ghostbusters, but in the early 1900s they were known as "ghost breakers." Our image is from the title page to The Ghost Breaker by Charles Williams Goddard & Paul Dickey, 1915.
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I'm not generally the kind of writer who reads dictionaries cover to cover. But I couldn't put this one down. This dictionary reminds you that not only is language a living, changing, entity -- it's also creative and powerful and personal. Just a few pages of this book will encourage you to lighten up and bravely approach your own prose.
Thank you, Gordon — your review made our day!
Collecting as it does hundreds and hundreds of all-vowel and all-consonant words from literature, Webster's Dictionary of Improbable Words is a word gamer's secret weapon. Pioneering lexicographer Noah Webster published his first Compendious Dictionary of the English Language in 1806. He spent decade after decade expanding his dictionary to make it more comprehensive. Webster's Dictionary of Improbable Words is a testament to the great wordsmith’s dedication.
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Page 33 of 71
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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