Quite Interesting Facts About Words

The BBC broadcasts a television series called Quite Interesting - devoted to the attitudes of "curiosity, discovery and humour."  It is hosted by the wonderful Stephen Fry.  QI also has a regular column in the weekend Telegraph.  In a recent article, some quite interesting facts about words are compiled, including this bit about word frequency:

Of the quarter of a million words in the OED [Oxford English Dictionary], about half are nouns, 25 per cent adjectives, 15 per cent verbs and the last 10 per cent are prepositions, conjunctions, suffixes etcetera. It is this last category that yields most of the top 10 most frequently used English words, according to a 2006 survey carried out by the Oxford English Corpus. They are: the, be, to, of, and, a, in, that, have and I. The 10 most popular nouns were: time, person, year, way, day, thing, man, world, life and hand. The 10 most popular verbs were: be, have, do, eat, sleep, drink, put, keep, run and walk. The 10 most popular adjectives: good, first, new, last, long, great, little, own, other and old.

I am kind of surprised about hand and run and walk.  Considering the source is the Oxford English Corpus -- which comes from literary textual sources, not the spoken word -- I suppose it does make sense.

P.S.  While I am loathe to cite a Wikipedia article about anything, there is an interesting entry for Stephen Fry (at least as of  25 February 2010 at 10:04 p.m. EST).

Word of the moment

The word of the moment is salmagundi

Pronunciation: sal-mə-ˈgən-dē

noun

1. a salad plate of chopped meats, anchovies, eggs, and vegetables arranged in rows for contrast and dressed with a salad dressing
2. a heterogeneous mixture. potpourri 

Sounds vaguely Anglo-Indian , doesn't it?  But it's not; it is French in origin (salmigondis).  Speaking of Anglo-Indian, that reminds me of one of my favorite dictionary titles:

Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive, by Sir Henry Yule.  It was published in 1903 (and is quite politically incorrect).  As it is out of copyright, there are free versions, both full-text and as a searchable database.

One month until the next DSB!

The second Durham Spelling Bee will be held on Saturday, March 13, 2010. Sign-in at 6:00 p.m. Spelling starts at 6:30 p.m. 

As usual the Bee will be at everyone's favorite coffee house, Joe Van Gogh, 1104B Broad Street.  Get yourself some beans!

And remember: there will be prizes!

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Tattoo spelling mistakes

Enjoy this gallery of the Worst Spelling Mistakes Made in Tattoos.

Thanks to Jen Dziura for the pointer.

Word of the moment

The word of the moment is crapulous.

crap·u·lous
Pronunciation: KRA-pyə-ləs
adjective
Etymology: Late Latin crapulosus, from Latin crapula intoxication, from Greek kraipalē
Date: 1536

1 : marked by intemperance especially in eating or drinking
2 : sick from excessive indulgence in liquor

Example: "Rush Limbaugh is known for being a crapulous debauchee."

Commonly misspelled words

accommodate, minuscule, occasionally, millennium...

There are lots of these kinds of lists out there. Here is one from YourDictionary.com:

100 Most Often Mispelled Misspelled Words in English

Winning words at the National Spelling Bee

Here are the winning words in each of the years from 1925 to 2009 at the National Spelling Bee.  Don't be intimidated; we start out with much easier and happier words at the Durham Spelling Bee.

1925 gladiolus 1926 abrogate 1927 luxuriance 1928 albumen 1929 asceticism 1930 fracas 1931 foulard 1932 knack 1933 propitiatory 1934 deteriorating 1935 intelligible 1936 interning 1937 promiscuous 1938 sanitarium 1939 canonical 1940 therapy 1941 initials 1942 sacrilegious 1943 NO BEE 1944 NO BEE 1945 NO BEE 1946 semaphore 1947 chlorophyll 1948 psychiatry 1949 dulcimer 1950 haruspex 1951 insouciant 1952 vignette 1953 soubrette 1954 transept 1955 custaceology 1956 condominium 1957 schappe 1958 syllepsis 1959 cacolet 1960 troche 1961 smaragdine 1962 esquamulose 1963 equipage 1964 sycophant 1965 eczema 1966 ratoon 1967 chihuahua

1968 abalone 1969 interlocutory 1970 croissant 1971 shalloon 1972 macerate 1973 vouchsafe 1974 hydrophyte 1975 incisor 1976 narcolepsy 1977 cambist 1978 deification 1979 maculature 1980 elucubrate 1981 sarcophagus 1982 psoriasis 1983 Purim 1984 luge 1985 milieu 1986 odontalgia 1987 staphylococci 1988 elegiacal 1989 spoliator 1990 fibranne 1991 antipyretic 1992 lyceum 1993 kamikaze 1994 antediluvian 1995 xanthosis 1996 vivisepulture 1997 euonym 1998 chiaroscurist 1999 logorrhea 2000 démarche 2001 succedaneum 2002 prospicience 2003 pococurante 2004 autochthonous 2005 appoggiatura 2006 ursprache 2007 serrefine 2008 guerdon 2009 Laodicean

Spelling Bee Brouhaha

There's nothing worse than a sore loser... except maybe a litigious sore-loser Dad.

In a recent local Los Altos School Spelling Bee in California, a mistake was rightfully settled, declaring that two spellers should go on to the regional spelling bee.  This is all good.  Then, when a third boy's sore-loser dad decided he didn't like the outcome of the regional bee, he filed a $2-million lawsuit against the local sponsor.  Fortunately, the court told the dad to get over it.  You can read the brief story here:

SerVaas, Joan. Spelling Bee Brouhaha. Saturday Evening Post, Jan/Feb2010, Vol. 282 Issue 1, p61