A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1034

I made up and often use the phrase “don’t grief me” which is different from “don’t grieve me”.
-Richard Rodzinski, Lake Placid, New York (richardrodzinski intermezzo-productions.com)

“Let’s Wordle.” Each morning as my partner and I play.
-Gale Bayer, Englewood, New Jersey (galebayer optonline.net)

I play doubles tennis, a sport in which you are taught to move in a diagonal at the net. So, I tell my partners to diagonate.
-Penni Fromm, Boca Raton, Florida (pennifromm yahoo.com)

Email of the Week -- Brought to you buy The Official Old’s Cool Education -- How do you get down from an elephant?”

As an artist, a writer and a seeker, I have often put art into a verb form. I am therefore I art... implies the creative potential of every person in the tradition of Joseph Beuys who saw everyone as an artist. I also like the fact the verb to art is close to the verb to be.
-Dominique Mazeaud, Santa Fe, New Mexico (heartistdm gmail.com)

We’re all familiar with “altercation”, which is an angry and heated argument. Rarely do we use its verb form “altercate”. I used it in a high-school English paper years ago, and my teacher circled it in red. I never used it again.
-Tony Pivetta, Royal Oak, Michigan (apivetta aol.com)

There is one in the self-help, mindfulness world that absolutely drives me crazy: efforting.
-Ellyn Varela-Burstein, Cold Spring, New York (ellynvb optonline.net)

How about nepotize? It’s what my granddaughter says whenever I say that her mother has beaten her in a contest. “You’re nepotizing her!”
-Anne Carroll Fowler, Portland, Maine (annecfowler mac.com)

I go to a lot of zoom folk song circles. I have to leave one of them for an hour or so to do a mitzvah -- a good deed, a small volunteer task. The host asked me when I’d be finished mitzvah-ing.
-Elizabeth Block, Toronto, Canada (elizabethblock netzero.net)

One noun that my wife verbicized has been “labelize” (to label something). It works so well and is handy. It’s become part of our regular home-speak.
-Patrick Bernou, Elmira, Canada (patrick.bernou sunlife.com)

My father-in-law famously used to threaten to “throatenize” anyone who disagreed with him.
-Mary Ann Bushman, Normal, Illinois (maryann.bushman gmail.com)

Having survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with significant loss to property and possessions (but not to life, thank God), my family and friends speak to something being Katrinarized when we are trying to remember what happened to some object that we can’t locate or about which we are reminiscing.
-Ellen Lee, New Orleans, Louisiana (emlee504 yahoo.com)