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AWADmail Issue 615

Sponsor's message: It's Officially Free. This week's Email of the Week winner, Heather Johnson (see below) -- as well as all AWADers worldwide -- can now make their own terrific fun word-nerd party for nothing. Introducing our best-selling One Up! -- The Wicked/Smart Word Game as a downloadable PDF, absolutely gratis. Hurree y'up.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net

14 Abstract Nouns We Need to Bring Back
The Week
WebCite

A Tour of the British Isles in Accents
YouTube (1.5 min)

Your cellphie example reminded me of my late German mother-in-law's name for her cell phone: her "celephone" -- it always made me smile when she said that.

From: Susan Brande (susan.brande gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--belfry

Oh, yes, like wheel-barrel which my husband still says after four decades of gentle correction from me!

From: Kate Lowe (kate18a dodo.com.au)
Subject: Cellfie

Cellfie? Only in America... In Oz we call them mobiles. [Also see words for mobile phones in different countries here.]

From: Martha O'Kennon (mokennon albion.edu)
Subject: belfry

Lewis Carroll wrote a piece "praising" the new belfry of Christ Church, Oxford:

From: Ken Kirste (kkkirste sbcglobal.net)
Subject: Bats in the belfry

Your second definition of belfry as head (as in the phrase to have bats in the belfry) recalled the cleverness of cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, who crafted a US politician for his comic strip "Shoe" named Sen. Batson D. Belfry. See a profile on Shoe's official website here.

From: Kai Rabenstein (k.rabenstein btinternet.com)
Subject: Belfry

In Walloon (Western) Belgium and Picardie/Northern France, these are known as "Beffroy" and are usually associated with town halls rather than churches: Since 2005, the 56 most outstanding examples -- including that of Calais -- are recognised on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Of note, perhaps the most famous (church) belfry is the leaning tower of Pisa, but in the Middle Ages the term was also applied (perhaps sarcastically) to mobile siege engine towers: Presumably their use meant that "the bells were tolling for the city's defenders" ...

From: Jimmie Ellis (msjce1 juno.com)
Subject: Belfry

A delightful word today! In my German class, we learned about that universal gesture -- but, auf Deutsch, instead of saying, "He has bats in his belfry", we say, "Er hat ein vogel auf dem kopf" which translates as "He has a bird in his head." But, it is the same gesture! Isn't that funny?

Grüß Gott,

From: Jeremy Robinson (hmgbird cfw.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--arrant

Perhaps the most famous use of the word:

"There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he's an arrant knave."

A redundancy spoken to Horatio by Hamlet.

From: Scott Swanson (harview montana.com)
Subject: arrant

Aha! I was only familiar with this word through my father's often citing Winston Churchill's supposed response to someone who criticized him for ending a sentence with a preposition: "This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put." I always presumed the word was spelt "errant". Thanks for correcting me!

(My father would correct others who engaged in prepositional sentence-ending by saying "Never end a sentence a preposition with.") [Also see this.]

From: Irving N. Webster-Berlin (awadreviewsongs gmail.com)
Subject: Song based on this week's words

Here are this week's AWAD Review Songs (words and recordings) for your listening and viewing pleasure.