The joy of gobbledygook

Some words are just more fun to say than others. Rutabaga, for example. Or pumpernickel.

Somehow neither of these words made the cut for L Is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongue, a charming dictionary of words that are a pleasure to pronounce. Many of these words, such as gobbledygook or humdinger, aren't even necessary. We have other, shorter, simpler words we could use. But, especially in the spoken word as opposed to the written word, brevity and simplicity are not primary objectives. More important, at least in casual conversation, is entertainment value.

Comedians know this. Writers like Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll knew it as well. Yes, they were working with written language, but they knew their books would be often read aloud and enjoyed as much for the sound of the words as for their meaning. (In Carroll's case, sometimes the words didn't even have any meaning.) We might say the same thing about Dr. Seuss.

Say aloud some of these words from L Is for Lollygag: cantankerous, dungarees, haberdasher, hullabaloo, peccadillo, plethora, rapscallion, rumpus, scalawag, serendipity, wisenheimer and Zamboni. Pleasurable words need not have several syllables. Even words like crux and rogue are included.

I was surprised how often I thought of my mother while reading this book. I didn't realize it during my youth, but she must have loved the sound of such words as catawampus, conniption, gadabout, gallivant, gumption, kitty-corner and persnickety. All these words are in the book.

If the words are fun, so are the definitions. Here's how this book defines amok: "going  crazy or out of control, like children who've had too much sugar. People usually run amok because walking amok would take too long." With writing like that it's a shame Chronicle Books did not see fit to give the writers, Molly Glover and Kate Hodson, cover credit. Their names are listed, however, in small print, on the copyright page. To that I say fiddlesticks!