The new year’s qualtagh, for luck, is supposed to be a dark-haired man. Also, the first person entering a house on New Year’s Day (often called a first foot). Qualtagh, the first person you meet after leaving your house on some special occasion. Here’s the complete entry for a seasonal example that’s longer than most: So readers will recognise a few of the words from the large set in my Weird Words archive, but there are hundreds more for your delectation, each of which has a sentence or two of explanation: apocrisiary (a person appointed to give answers) bablatrice (a female babbler), elaqueate (to free from a noose or other entanglement) jiffle (to fidget or shuffle), ochlophobia (an extreme or irrational fear of crowds), otacust (a spy or eavesdropper), pollinctor (a person who prepares a dead body for cremation or embalming), and siagonology (the study of jawbones). The original British version was for a while given away with copies of the New Oxford Dictionary of English its editors in Oxford, being short of both time and money, mined my Weird Words section for inspiration in creating it.Įrin McKean has expanded and varied their selection and Roz Chast has added some delightful illustrations I also wrote the webliography (a word for the online equivalent of a bibliography that might well be in the book itself) that appears in the current issue of Verbatim, which Erin McKean edits in her spare time from her day job as a Senior Editor in the North American Dictionary Program (she also edited a collection of pieces from that journal). Weird Words? Is this not (I hear you asking) a breach of my copyright? Actually I’m a part of the genesis of this book.
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