Introduction and Index: August 30, 2014 Reading the Dictionary Backwards "zig"

Reading the Merriam Webster Dictionary Backwards

August 30,2014 "zig"
blog address: Readingthedictionarybackwards.blogspot.com
email: ishmaelish36@blogspot.com

You can find my other blog of pediatric anecdotes, poetry, artwork and literature at ishmaelish36.blogspot.com

Introduction:

    I have always had a weakness for facts...eclectic, esoteric, amusing…my family sometimes calls me "Fast Facts Feole."  I am proud of there skill at alliteration.  When I see my pediatric patients, I always try to instill a spark of intellectual curiosity, whether it is showing them some origami, giving a word or math puzzle or calculator trick, making a Moebius strip…all fun.   
     Words and etymologies are interesting, and especially helpful in medicine.   While studying Pathology as a medical student, I would find myself, locked in the bowels of the library on a sunny Saturday afternoon, Robins pathology laid open before me…and I would spend hours, chalk in hand at the blackboard,  composing an allegory on T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock from a medical thematic perspective.  So much for my pathology grade.  I also loved the book on the person who read the entire Encylopedia Brittanica in one year…something I would love to do.  I have read books on the making of the OED ("The Meaning of Everything").  I definitely have the bug.
     In any case, I suddenly got the inspiration to read the entire dictionary.  How could I go through life, a lover of words, and not read every word in the dictionary?  What could I be missing?  The "Z's seemed less daunting of a start and…I finished... all four pages.  
     I was hooked by the 9th definition:

     Zag:   a line at an angle to a zig.

    So… I will try to enter a word a day of the words I find most interesting and amusing.  I hope you enjoy this.

   Glenn Feole, M.D.  (I will keep an index, below, of these words.)



Z:

zany

zeitgeist
zenithal

Zephyrus

zest

zeugma

zilch

zoot suit
zugzwang

zym-

zymology

zymurgy

Y: 

    -y (suffix)

Yahoo

Yahweh

  Yahwism

Yahwistic

yalmulke

year

X:

     Xanadu
     xantho-
     xanthic
     xanthochromic
     xeno-
     xenophobe
     xenophile
     xenon
     xylo-
     xylophone
     xylographer


W:

     West
     westerly
     Weltanschauung
     Weltschmerz
     wettability
     whoops
     window
     wingding
     wispish
     witch of agnesi
     witenagamote
     Woden
     woodnymph
     wow
     wyvern

V:

     vaccine
     valediction
     vanadium
     Vanadis
     vapid
     vastitude
     Vedas
     Vedic
     veranda
     verboten
     verdant
     verdigris
     vespertine

F:

     Frigga
     frigorific

C:

     crepescular



Words of unknown etymology:

     wingding
     selah
     riel
     rickets
     qualm
     quandary
     quaff


Words of eclectic etymology

     Veranda: from Hindu
     French:
          soiree


Word Journeys (how the definition of the first word leads to successively unknown, interesting words, etc.)

     quetzal…trogan…nonpasserine…altricial

     how an African mammal is related to a Gothic arch:
          pangolin...imbricated…pantile…ogee…arches

     seven words that start with "cz"
          Czech, czar, czarina, czaritza (wife of the czar)