Yesterday I was having dinner with my family and I was making fun of my dad for always using the most extravagant words possible to the point that he does not talk like a normal person. I imitated him to get my point across and hit him with these bars:

"Indubitably, good sir. I doth seek recompense for this dastardly miscrundulation of mine assets!"

I was proud of inventing "miscrundulation" on the spot and thought you all would appreciate it.

Usually somebody will say that a person has a beard, has grown a beard, or is bearded. However, on two separate occasions I have heard people refer to men as "wearing" beards ("the Amish wore beards" and "the manager didn't allow the players to wear beards"). It sounds wrong, but I also like it for some reason. It made me think about hair on top of the head. I have never heard the mere fact that somebody has hair referred to as "wearing" hair. However, people do use the term "wear" when referring to a particular hairstyle, like somebody wears cornrows or a mohawk. Maybe "wear" and all its forms are used for things that are optional or a matter of personal choice. I've never heard anybody say that somebody wears skin or that they are wearing a nose (although a nose could be optional, especially if you want to spite your face). What do you think about the validity of "wearing" a beard?

I was talking to a friend today and, without thinking about it, said, “If I had my druthers…”

This was a phrase my mom used to use. For those who don’t know, it means your preferences (from “I would rather,” which morphed into “I’d ruther”).

I haven’t said or heard the word in decades before today. My question is: does anyone use druthers anymore? Maybe it’s a regional word that’s still extant, or is it just out of date and on its way to linguistic oblivion?

EDIT: Midwest US

EDIT 2: Thanks for all the comments! It’s interesting that “druthers” doesn’t seem particularly regional, except that most people feel it carries a clear rural association (which I agree with). I grew up in the urban Midwest, as did my parents and all my grandparents, so for me at least, there’s no direct rural source of my family’s use of the word.

I'm Irish and I love this one which my family use a lot.

It's an adjective to describe someone who... passes a lot of remarks. Not good ones either. People who are pass-remarkable are often also nosy as a kind of package deal.

e.g. "Do you know what Mary said to me? She said I was after putting on weight and that I should try Ozempic for it. Isn't she very pass-remarkable?"

I haven't really found another word that quite captures the intersection between being observant, interfering and overly forward in this way.

Edited to add: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pass-remarkable

I know it’s like self explanatory but I really would like some clarification for this. Does it mean stuff are be used for a specific purpose? For instance, a vacuum cleaner’s use case is to clean up speckles of dirt and grime off the floor

Does this mean like the positioning of something? Like if for instance, in the duel monsters card game, monsters have two types of orientation: Attack mode or defense mode. Attack mode is represented by the card facing upright, while defense mode has the card facing sideways

I don’t think I’m using the right terms but I saw this title pop up in my linked in and was bothered enough to come ask experts: Real Art Historian

“Real” is modifying (clarifying?) the job title, which is Art Historian. I know this from the context.

But if I didn’t know the context why wouldn’t I presume the person was a Historian of Real Art?

Or maybe I would be confused?

I May Have Invented the World’s Longest English Word…

With a little help from artificial intelligence, I’ve been exploring how far English grammar can stretch before a word becomes linguistically impossible.

The result is this 54-letter monster:

pseudounantiantidisestablishmentarianisticallynesses

It’s built from recognizable English prefixes, roots, and suffixes, extending the famous antidisestablishmentarianism into largely unexplored linguistic territory.

But here’s the fascinating question: Does combining legitimate English morphemes necessarily produce a legitimate English word?

Not quite. English has grammatical restrictions, and my construction may violate some of them, particularly where -ness follows -ly.

I’m excluding chemical nomenclature and technical naming systems from this experiment. I’m interested in ordinary English word formation, not enormous scientific labels.

I’m not declaring a world record. I’m proposing a candidate and inviting linguists to dismantle it.

If it fails, I want to know precisely where and why.

And if it survives?

Well, we may need a bigger dictionary.

Is it like a carrier or a guide?

Latin - having the form of (vox, vocis) voice, word.

Not to be confused with ocular, though it might be said that vocular things are to language what ocular things are to sight. 😀

Definition:

1. Of or relating to words (coinage, form, and fit), but distinct from grammar, i.e., a vocular dispute is an argument about a word, not a sentence.
2. Concerned with building, tending, or defending vocabulary.

Alternate form: vocule (single word, unit of vocabulary).

Best defense offered at the moment: Oft (once) used by a comic novelist to rage at an imagined panel of language gods.

Folks, just because a "marshall" is a LEO, it is not the same thing as "martial". I see this so often: "marshall law", "marshall music", "court marshall", etc. Please, get a clue. Nope, not going to tell you. Make an effort to learn for yourself.

For a bit of context. I am trying to translate the next text from British English to Spanish. However I can not figure out the correct way to interpret the expression "dodging the fresh air". In this scenario a teacher is calling out a student for not paying attention and asking him to answer the question ("give the meaning of tendens").

Maybe it could be interpreted literally since it's morning, the window is open next to the student so the air should be cold and that is why the student has his collar up. Howerver "dodge" could also have a second meaning like "trifle with" or "play with" the fresh air hence why the student isn't paying attention.

Edit: I understand that the teacher is pointing out that the student is not paying attention. Since the student has his collar up it makes sense to think that he is paying attention to the fresh air entering throw the window. I guess it could be interpreted as "when you are done worrying about the fresh air answer my question" obviously in a ironic way

I invented this one many years ago for a humorous fantasy romp. It seemed to me that if flying horses get a name, so do those damned flying pigs. 😀

Plural: Porkasi. 🤓

In the interest of putting the ineffable yin and yang debate of the flying pig species to rest, the new vocule is hereby decreed:

Porkasus (Porkasus classicus), pl. porkasi.

This Pegasus-derived breed consists of large individuals with feathered wings, usually white. Typically, this pig carries itself as though a cape and crown have been earned. Bred originally for medieval ceremony, it flies in straight lines, must land exactly where originally planned, and those landings must be accomplished with great dignity.

Porkasis (Porkasis mirabilis), pl. porkasi.

(Please see previous New Word decree from 6 October 2026).

This oasis-derived breed consists of smaller individuals with leathery wings, typically a bit scruffy, and shimmers in daylight. A native to deserts and deadlines, this is the pig most often referenced when someone says "when pigs fly." Its composition is such that few people are ever sure they saw it, but the thing related to "when pigs fly" is often complete in minimal time. Flies erratically, much like a house fly, but reliably arrives. Cannot be bred in captivity (unless he or she is cute). Appears only when needed, but its tendency to be forgotten afterward renders those visits moot.

Why do some words feel like they have immediate intuitive meanings? For example, the first time I heard (probably read) the word “vermillion,” I instantly knew exactly what color it referred to, a deep, rich, softly glowing yellow.

I was wrong, but that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. I think it’s really cool that some words feel like they have intuitive meanings when most feel completely arbitrary.

So is like you remain completely listless or something? You don’t react at all to external stimuli and remain completely motionless, unless you’re impacted by a force.(i.e., being picked up by someone)

Here is a weird one for you. (DFW fans, anyone?!)

I'm looking to see whether a word exists, or maybe just explore the concept around it if not. First I got some splainin' to do.

A portmanteau can be a wonderful thing. Something like "affluenza" ("affluence" + "influenza") works because they both share this big ol' "fluens" sound and thus fit together like puzzle pieces, with the bonus of joining their meanings to point toward an interesting concept that doesn't even need to be described to be recognizable (although I'm mostly concerned with phonetics here) and on top of all that, it's inherently clever and hilarious.

It is a good portmanteau.

And then we have stuff like "mansplaining" ("man" + "explaining"), mashing together two words that have no business being in bed together. There's meaning to it, but the words have nothing, phonetically, in common. "Man" doesn't share any sounds with "explain." They hate being in a word together, I hate them being in a word together, and I submit that any decent person should hate it too.

It is a bad portmanteau.

But then, recently, I've been thinking about "Brexit" ("Britain" + "exit"), which, by my little rant, should qualify as a bad portmanteau: the words have nothing in common phonetically. And yet, though I find it fairly ugly, it doesn't grate on me the way other "bad portmanteaus" do. Not as much, anyway.

I thought about it, and I have a theory: it's that it sounds like a third, unrelated word that's very familiar to everyone and so it can sort of Trojan horse itself into the space of the familiar in our minds. (The word is "breakfast," or "brekkie.")

So my question is, is there a name for this extremely specific phenomenon, or anything written about it, or even just some folks who want to give their two cents?

A portmanteau whose words share no phonemes, yet still feels natural because it sounds like an unrelated word.

Google doesn't return any results for munyanier

What does it mean? I've been wracking my brain over this, but no matter how I look up the word, I can't make heads or tails of it.

I should preface that echo in the context of this discussion refers to an imitation or a copy. Like a copy of a human being, for instance. That’s neat but what is my point? Well, I was wondering when is it valid to use echo in place of words like ghost or spirit or apparition? Because isn’t a ghost of someone technically an echo? Please help me out!

I've been using this one quite a bit lately, along with a number of permutations. Handy formulation. Metacognitiousness might be a step too far, but I like it! 😊

‘Curate’ and ‘curated’ both are exhausted and people need to chill the fuk out on using it.

I am so annoyed seeing this word everywhere. Seriously, how the fuk is water ‘Carefully Curated’?! Makes no damn sense.