Tuesday, September 19, 2017

When "Weird" Doesn't Quite Express What You Want to Say


One of the nice things about loving language is knowing other people who share your fascination. My friend Mary sent me a link the other day to this wonderful article from Oxford Dictionaries: 17 Synonyms for Weird.

In a world that is getting more and more weird every day, we need to avoid linguistic fatigue when we try to describe what's going on. The article provides a great list, but my favorite is:

Ostrobogulous 

It means, "Slightly risqué or indecent, [and is] also applied arbitrarily to things which are bizarre, interesting, or unusual in some other way." I think this is an absolutely wonderful word that rolls off the tongue in a W.C. Fields-ian sort of way.

I have often been described as eccentric (a word that did not make the list of 17, except as part of the explanation of other words), an adjective I wear with pride, and one of my oldest friends blogs as Gonzo Dave ("gonzo" did make the list).

You can read the full list of synonyms on your own and decide which ones speak to you. And what words do you use that aren't on the list? Leave a comment and help us all improve our vocabularies.

Have a good day. More offbeat, wacky, and madcap thoughts coming.

Bilbo

2 comments:

eViL pOp TaRt said...

Wow! It's going to be tough to work this into a sentence!

Mike said...

I before E except after C is a weird spelling rule.