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Droll Dictionaries

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Welcome to Droll Dictionaries

To most folks, dictionaries are barely browsed books used to cover wearisome walls or as a dandy device to prop open a dang-nabbed door.

To wordpeckers and wordsmiths, dictionaries are time-tested tools designed to keep them on the straight and narrow path of accepted word usage, a ripsnorting resource for all manner of word games, and as a marvellous way to nourish the odd brain fart or two!

To professors, preteens, and politicians, dictionaries are vital to splitting hairs, winning spelling bees, not to mention duelling with dubious debaters.

And to leisure-conscious lollygaggers with a whole lot of time on their hands to let their fingers flip non-chalantly if not randomly through the pages of a dictionary to find funny words, come up up with new meanings for old or obscure words, and even invent brand-new words and expressions just for the heck of it -- dictionaries are droll indeed.

Contents at a Glance

Terrific Table of Contents
WACKY WORD OF THE MONTH POLL
Droll Dictionary Pick of the Season
Entertaining excerpt from "My First...
DROLL DICTIONARY OF THE MONTH
If something was misspelled in the dicti...

WACKY WORD OF THE MONTH POLL
Droll Dictionary Pick of the Season
Entertaining excerpt from "My First Dictionary"
DROLL DICTIONARY OF THE MONTH
If something was misspelled in the dictionary, he wondered how he would know?
THE PERFECT GIFT FOR A SNOOTY SO-AND-SO!
WORD OF THE DAY FOR WONKS AND WORDSMITHS
WORDORIUM

It's amazing what a little "quantitative easing" and "stimulus package" can do for a constipated constitution or is it institution?

For a more detailed description of funny fetlocks and ripsnorting riders, please see this lively and light-hearted lens Eccentric Equestrians.

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Droll Dictionary Pick of the Season

Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors

by: Bill Bryson

Amazon Price: $8.99 (as of 02/17/2012)

This is an indispensable companion for all who care enough about the English language not to mangle, maul, or misuse it.

Entertaining excerpt from "My First Dictionary"

__________

Image Credit: http://izismile.com

DROLL DICTIONARY OF THE MONTH

When you're tired of twiddling your thumbs, wiggling your ears, and tapping your feet while waiting for Godot to show up to tell you what do, or baby Buddha to teach you all about the meaning of life, do something worthwhile -- consult this unusual online dictionary to pass the time of day!

If something was misspelled in the dictionary, he wondered how he would know?

THE PERFECT GIFT FOR A SNOOTY SO-AND-SO!

Each year when the gala gift-giving season rolls around, it's difficult to decide what to get a high-muck-a-muck who has everything or the supremely snooty so-and-so.

Well fear not, the Goddess of Great Gifts has the answer. Why not make an investment in a tiny tome called the, Wine Snob's Dictionary. It will satisfy that ripsnorting receiver's thirst for wicked wine terms that will tickle them pink while you practice the amusing art of cork-sniffing.

WORD OF THE DAY FOR WONKS AND WORDSMITHS

mammonism: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

"Lexicographer". A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

(Samuel Johnson, 1709-84).

WORDORIUM

A wonky word spot.

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Call me the "Diva of Dust Kitties" honeybun!

According to the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), which is published in many volumes with more than a thousand pages devoted to delightful words, there are more than 176 names for "dust balls under the bed". They include: detritus, down under the bed, dust balls, dust bunnies, dust curl, dust kittens, dust kitties, dust mice, elephants under the bed, fiber, floss, flue, fluff, fur, furball, fuzz, fuzzball, ghost turds, house moss, lanugo, lint, nap, pile, thistledown and woolies among others.

Where the devil do I begin?

"The Devil's Dictionary was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was continued in a desultory way and at long intervals until 1906. In that year a large part of it was published in covers with the title The Cynic's Word Book, a name which the author had not the power to reject nor the happiness to approve."

"Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. The present dictionary, however, is one of the most useful works that its author, Dr. John Satan, has ever produced. It is designed to be a compendium of everything that is known up to date of its completion, and will drive a screw, repair a red wagon or apply for a divorce. It is a good substitute for measles, and will make rats come out of their holes to die. It is a dead shot for worms, and children cry for it."

-- Excerpts from "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce.

DELIGHTFUL DICTIONARY DIVERSIONS

VERBOTOMY: Where creating new verbs is a passion.
PSEUDODICTIONARY: A rather fine faux-fiction spot.
URBAN DICTIONARY: Where you get to invent words for your world.
DEVIL'S DICTIONARY: Beelzebub's Bible by Ambrose Bierce.
GRANDILOQUENT DICTIONARY: For pompous prattlers.
WORDLAB: A creative forum for brand-name droppers.
VERBIVORE: Where vacuous verbivores hang out!
VERBATIM MAGAZINE: A ripsnorting resourse for dictionary lovers.
WORLD WIDE WORDS: A British slant on sniglets and other things.
THE POLITICALLY-INCORRECT ALPHABET: For tsk tsk types naturally!
WORD-DETECTIVE: For slippery, sleuthing, sycophantic types.
STRANGE & UNUSUAL DICTIONARIES: A collection of rather fine well-fingered books.
DOUBLE-TONGUED WORD WRESTER DICTIONARY: A detailed yet delightful dictionary.
DICTIONARY OF WINDS: For hot-air enthusiasts and windbags.
DICTIONARY OF LIMERICKS: The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form (all 35,000 entries).
THE FICTIONARY: The Fictionary of Witty Words.
DICTIONARY OF CUSTOM LICENSE PLATE TERMS: For those who love vanity license plates!
THE NON-VERBAL DICTIONARY: For those who haven't got a clue about "body language", or what gestures and gesticulations mean.
THE FOOLISH DICTIONARY: For those who live in a fool's paradise.
THE DICTIONARY OF SLANG: A prerequisite to "Pig Latin 101"!
THE ALTERNATIVE DICTIONARIES: "Bad language" compiled from 162 dictionaries all over the globe.
SOUND SYMBOLISM DICTIONARY: A very strange dictionary indeed.
DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH PHONESTHEMES - PART 1: Professors of English, paltry poets, and putzing people will adore this addition to their library, particularly if they're into alliteration.
WORDS BORROWED FROM OTHER LANGUAGES: And you thought English was pure as the driven snow!
A DICTIONARY OF SLANG: An authoritative tome on UK Slang.
HISTORY OF THE DICTIONARY: History buffs will love the naked truth about the evolution of the humble dictionary.
TAWDRY TRIVIA: The Bollocks Court Case -- Something about the indecent use of wayward words.
YOUR DICTIONARY: If it's not your's...whose is it?
SLANG SITE: For weird webspeakers.
BRAND NAME BUZZWORDS: Wanna know what a "big fat wombat", "blurker" and "bozone" have in common?
ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY: For those who can't spell or even begin to pronounce big words they haven't a clue what they mean...here's "a map of the wheel ruts of Modern English".
BS & BALDERDASH: A bookshelf full of bafflegab and bunkum.
LEXICON OF TIDDLYWINKS: If I can't pot my nurdled wink, I'll just have to piddle you free so you can boondock a red...so there!
19th CENTURY IDIOMS: Do you have "Punic Faith" in "pot-wallopers"?
THE IMGLISH DICTIONARY: Brought to you by BuzzWhack -- "The Instant Messaging & Texting Shorthand Dictionary" or all you ever wanted to know about "LSHMBH" (Laughing So Hard My Belly Hurts) of course.
BRAIN CANDY INSULT COLLECTION: A rather fine compendium of witty put-downs, mocking indignities, and impertinent insolence for those who truly deserve it.
THE UNOFFICIAL SMILEY DICTIONARY: For fidgety folks who want to know what to do with their fingers on a computer keyboard :-) ...you little winky devil >;- you!
THE NOT SO CORRECT DICTIONARY: Definitions of things for not so correct folk!
THE CAT DICTIONARY: Helpful to understand "Fat Cats" not to mention those who wear pajamas.
THE LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO DICTIONARY: Well, if you really must know, it's really called "The Lawyers Stink Online Dictionary"!
THE MARCHING BAND GEEK GLOSSARY: Merry-music lovers and mirthful marching band members can't get enough of it!
HUMOROUS INSURANCE GLOSSARY: Who knew those underwriters actually have funnybones!
THE DIALECTIZER: Haven't you always wanted to learn a few words in Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Hacker, Jive, Moron, Pig Latin, Redneck, and Swedish Chef dialect?
OBSCURE OBSOLETE WORDS: Here's a lovely list of odd, obscure and obsolete words which perhaps should be ressurected in your next conversation with a 'been there done that' or know-it-all sort of person.
CANADIAN PHRASE-BOOK IN-PROGRESS: Folks living north of the 49th parallel have odd expressions for practically everything, and here's a sample.
USEFUL PHRASES: A curious collection of phrases that accidental tourists might find handy like, "My hedgehog isn't stupid", (in Swedish it's "Min iglekot e inte dum.")
RULES FOR A PARIS LIBRARY: 13 rules for how to conduct one's business in a Paris Library, circa 1300. (They didn't like people talking then any more than they do today!)
STACKING THE DECK FOR DICTIONARIES: Ever wondered how words get into the dictionaries in the first place? And if the lexicographers won't accept your new word, or long lost one...stop whining and write your own dictionary!!
DICTIOWARY: A fine mangled-word museum.
TEXT MESSAGE TOME: Ever wanted to know what "BDB15M" means? -- "Busy Day-Dreaming Be Back in 15 Minutes", or HOAS -- "Hold On a Second".
WEIRD WORDS: Wickedly weird stuff for witty word wonks.
THE DICTIONARY OF DAFFY DISEASES: All about altered ailments and mirthful maladies.
MERRY CHRISTMAS DICTIONARY: More than 50 ways and foreign words to say "Merry Christmas"!
FLIP DICTIONARY: A handy little helper when you forget words or their meanings...recommended by LOL's and LOM's not to mention Scrabble players the world over!
WORDS THAT NEVER MADE IT INTO THE DICTIONARY: Here's a delightful dictionary created by Squidoo's own - Kimberly Dawn Wells - "The Security Word Thesaurus"!
JOURNALESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY: This do-it-yourself dictionary is full of wonderful words and meanings that jest-in-time journalists will appreciate!
2008 LIST OF BANISHED WORDS: A short compendium of buzz words that should be banished (due to an obese form of overuse), published by Lake Superior State University...yup, you guessed it "perfect storm" won the top spot!

NEVER BE AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

Jest-in-time folks will never be at a loss for words if they consult this cockamammie collection of comical catchphrases -- Joke Dictionary!

ESTEEMED & ENTERTAINING SOCIETIES

The world of wit and wonk owes a debt of gratitude to these organizations:

The Apostrophe Protection Society - dedicated to preserving the correct use of this abused if not much maligned punctuation mark in the English language (which is as good as any other reason for being).

In addition to addressing the burning issues of galoping irony and post-modernist disillusionment, members of the International Institute of Jaded Hipsters have also expressed an interest in preserving punctuation marks and enigmatic emoticons to reduce the level of fog in society. Yippy!

The International Society of Photographic Jargon, (the folks behind the foreign language translations of digital camera operating manuals), are keen on retaining commas and periods in their technical bulletins. Regrettably, they recently eliminated the use of question marks as this lowered consumer confidence in their products.

The American Hyphen Society is a community-based, not-for-profit, grass-roots conciousness-raising/education-research alliance that seeks to help effectuate the across-the-board self-empowerment of wide-ranging culture-, nationality-, ethnicity-, creed-, gender-, and sexual-orientation defined identity groups by excising all multiculturally-less-than-sensitive terminology from the English language, and replacing it with counter-hegemonic, cruelty-, gender-, bias-, and, if necessary, content-free speech. Do you think that they know about the Fathers Against Rude Television (FART) or the Society of Nice Ordinary Terrestrials (SNOT)?

Punctuation professionals are pretty pinheaded if not a tad picayune when it comes to letting the rest of the world know the right way to do something. However, they haven't been able to cooperate long enough to form an "association", although some have managed to put pen to paper to let us all know about the pronunciation of punctuation in Unix. Oh what a relief!

And, last but not least, The Red Hats Society (for feisty felines over fifty) really don't give a flying fig leaf about punctuation marks because they're far too interested in going for the gusto!

LAUGHS FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS

WHAT WONDERFUL WORDS COME TO MIND IN A PINCH

If you're going abroad on business, or to give a long-winded lecture to a gathering of cranky curmudgeons on the latest advances in melanin impoverished alternative body image makeovers, you probably won't find the following book engaging or for that matter enlightening.

On the other hand, if you're taking a trip around the world in 80 days to have a bit of fun while also stopping off to see your incontinent inlaws and their pesky pet rock, you may find the phrases in this book handy.

The tiny tome one should never leave home without is The Insult Dictionary - How to Give'em Hell in Five Nasty Languages.

Under the category of "short all-purpose insults", one finds several that may come in handy one day:

Blundering Idiot: Stupider Holzkopf (German), Balourd (French), Cretino confusionario (Italian), and Papanatas (Spanish).

Pig-headed: Dickkopfig (German), Tete de mule (French), Testardo (Italian), and Fantoche (Spanish).

Scatterbrain; Dolmer (German), Ecervele (French), Scervellato (Italian), and Memo (Spanish)

And if these few words don't fit the bill, then better pick up The Lover's Dictionary where you'll find all the playmates you want ...how to engage them and disengage them with the right words in the right language. All you have to do is find the right time to let them flow from your lips ...you charming little cherub ...or is it you chinless wonder!

__________

Image Credit: cafemaco at flickr.com

UNIQUE, UNUSUAL UNDERTAKINGS

If engineers rule the world, does that mean chemists have a sense of humor?

Believe it or not, there is one British beaker-man who spends all his time collecting molecules with ridiculous, silly, or sometimes rather unusual names.

The University of the Bleeding Obvious" is "the" place to go if you've always wanted to learn more about "Death by Pastry", "Extreme Dinosaurs" or "Typists of the Kalahari".

The Creative Loafing Institute offers a wide range of activities for those who love doing zero, zip, or zilch ...be it twiddling one's thumbs, waiting for Godot, or simply watching grass grow.

University of Useless Knowledge is an excellent resource for those wishing to pursue pointless projects and questionable quests for higher learning.

And last but not least, there is one fellow who is worth tapping into, Ovid Publius Hadweenzic, Ph.D., Professor of Piffle at the University of Utterly Useless Undertakings in Little Snoring (Suffolk), and Dean of Do-Nothing at the International Institute of Irregular Verbs & Dangling Modifiers in Yonder Bognie.

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Image Credit: www.clipartpal.com - image 014

WEIRD WEIRDS FOR LEXICON-LOVERS

QUIRKY CALENDARS & CURIOSITIES

Wordbirds - Have you had enough of the "12 Days of Christmas" to last a lifetime?

Maybe a pear tree in a partridge will brighten your day!

____________

Image Credit: laugh lines blog - nytimes.com

A WAY WITH WORDS AND WORDBOOKS

Dictionaries are useful especially when you don't know how to pronounce long words (and there are more than a few in the English language), can't spell them worth a bean, and haven't got a clue what they mean.

Twentieth century American author Ambrose Bierce had this to say about this trivial-pursuit tome in his celebrated yet irreverent word book of cynical and sardonic wit, The Devil's Dictionary.

"Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. The present dictionary, however, is one of the most useful works that its author, Dr. John Satan, has ever produced. It is designed to be a compendium of everything that is known up to date of its completion, and will drive a screw, repair a red wagon or apply for a divorce. It is a good substitute for measles, and will make rats come out of their holes to die. It is a dead shot for worms, and children cry for it."

Former American football coach Vince Lombardi had a limited use for this big book:

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."

Mae West, a renowned burlesque queen, after having an inflatable life-preserver named after her is reported to have said:

"I've been in 'Who's Who', and I know what's what, but it'll be the first time I ever made the dictionary."

A quaint quotation about the proper use of a dictionary may be attributed to 19th century English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

"At painful times when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammar and dictionaries are excellent for distraction."

Samuel Johnson, 18th century English author best known for his work A Dictionary of the English Language had this to say about this lexicon for literate folks:

"Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true."

And lastly, John Ralston Saul, a Canadian author with a sharp sense of humor, particularly his witty work entitled, The Doubter's companion - A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense provided a brief yet biting definition of this ten lettered, three syllabled word:

"Dictionary - Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order."

Droll Dictionaries

Welcome to Droll Dictionaries

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

Terrific Table of Contents

WACKY WORD OF THE MONTH POLL

It's amazing what a little "quantitative easing" and "stimulus package" can do for a constipated constitution or is it institution?

Thanks for voting! Now invite your friends to vote.

Droll Dictionary Pick of the Season

Entertaining excerpt from "My First Dictionary"

DROLL DICTIONARY OF THE MONTH

THE PERFECT GIFT FOR A SNOOTY SO-AND-SO!

WORD OF THE DAY FOR WONKS AND WORDSMITHS

WORDORIUM

Call me the "Diva of Dust Kitties" honeybun!

Where the devil do I begin?

DELIGHTFUL DICTIONARY DIVERSIONS

NEVER BE AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

ESTEEMED & ENTERTAINING SOCIETIES

LAUGHS FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS

WHAT WONDERFUL WORDS COME TO MIND IN A PINCH

UNIQUE, UNUSUAL UNDERTAKINGS

WEIRD WEIRDS FOR LEXICON-LOVERS

QUIRKY CALENDARS & CURIOSITIES

Wordbirds - Have you had enough of the "12 Days of Christmas" to last a lifetime?

Maybe a pear tree in a partridge will brighten your day!

A WAY WITH WORDS AND WORDBOOKS

I misplaced my dictionary. Now I'm at a loss for words!

BOISTEROUS BOOKSHELF

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