Strange
books and strange names have existed since both came into existence. But, how
about books that are oddly named or are titled in a way that connects to the
author’s name?
·
Jack
Ray Strange penned Abnormal Psychology: Understanding Behavior Disorders (1965).
·
John
Goodbody wrote The Illustrated History of
Gymnastics (1983).
·
A.Lord
produced The Craze of God (1859).
·
William
A. Christian wrote Oppositions of
Religious Doctrines (1972).
·
Jane
Arbor penned The Cypress Garden (1969).
·
Geoff
Carless wrote Motorcycling for Beginners
(1980).
·
Roger
Grounds wrote The Perfect Lawn
(1974).
Then
there are popular homophone-titled books:
·
The King Who
Rained
by Fred Gwynne
·
All Paws on Deck by Jessica Young
·
A Chocolate Moose
for
Dinner by Fred Gwynne
·
How Much Can a
Bare Bear Bear? By Brian P. Cleary
·
Cat Tale by Michael Hall
Maybe
something stranger than odd author names and homophonic book titles would be a
list of towns and cities with some weird names.
Here’s a list of real people with some unfortunate names:
·
Anita
Dick
·
Ben
Dover
·
Donny
Brook
·
Hung
Lo
·
P.
Daily
·
Kiss
Myass
·
Moe
Lester
·
Rose
Bush
·
Winsome
Ho
I
want to give credit to all of the above to Rod L. Evans, Ph.D., who crafted
ones of the best books on wordplay, Tyranosaurus
Lex.
His
book is filled with all kinds of linguistic treasures for word nerds.
He
also identifies some great resources for those in pursuit of English oddities:
He
also points out these quirky anomalies of our language:
Portmanteau
These
are words that are formed by combining two words. It is not a compound word, where two whole
words join together. In this case, part
of a word joins with the part of another word.
Brunch
– breakfast and lunch
Frenemy
– a friend who is really an enemy
Smog
– smoke plus fog
Pun
It’s
a play on words, where there’s a suggestion of multiple meanings.
To
write a letter with a broken pencil is pointless.
Did
you hear about the woman whose left side was sliced off? She’s all right now.
Phantonyms
A
word or phrase that looks like it’s the opposite to the meaning of another word
or phrase, but isn’t.
Give
in – take out
Downfall
– uprise
Pair
- impair
Beheadments
When
a word loses its first letter and is still a word
Grumble
– rumple
Emotion
– motion
Orange
– range
Certailments
Words
that lose their last letter are still words.
Beard
– bear
Quartz
– quart
Pearl
– pear
Capitonyms
Words
that change in meaning or become names once capitalized.
August,
August magnificent/eighth month
Herb,
Herb plant/short for Herbert
Reading,
reading understanding written language/PA town
Homonyms
Words
that sound alike, but mean different things – They can sometimes be spelled the
same.
Too
– to
Carat
– carrot
Pail
– pale
Rose
(flower) - rose (to rise up)
Synonym
Words
that mean similar things
Murdered
- killed
Cold
– freezing
Close
- shut
Antonyms
Words
that are opposite in meaning
Good
– bad
Dark
– light
Day
– night
Misnomers
Misleading
expressions (terms or illogical name)
Boxing
rings are square.
To
say you could care less really means they couldn’t care less
A
near miss is actually a near hit
Neologisms
Newly
minted words or expressions that may or may not have lasting power.
Staycation
– vacation at home
Starter
marriage – first marriage that ends quickly
Paperphilia
– preference to read from paper over a screen
Word
Chains
Can
you change a dog into a cat? In the
spirit of Six Degrees of Separation,
take a word and switch out a letter, and another, and so on, until you created
the polar opposite.
Give
hate
Live
rate
Like
rave
Lake
cave
Take
cove
Love
Internal
Deletion Homophones
A
word that becomes its own homophone where just one of its letters is removed.
Aunt
– ant
Add
– ad
Two
– to
Grammagrams
The
pronunciation of certain words that consist entirely of non-consonant sounds
Decay
= dk
Ivy
– iv
Tedious
– tds
Excellency=
xlnc
Obediency
= obdnc
Piano
Words
These
are words that only use letters a through f – like the note on musical
instrument.
Baggage
Decade
Façade
Charades
These
are words that have multiple words inside of them – without rearranging or losing
any letters. Just put a space in the
right spot.
Across
– a cross
Beauties
– beau ties
Mean
= me an
Alternades
A
word that can become multiple words when letters are used alternately, in a
strict sequence. Every letter must be
used.
Schooled
– shoe + cold
Waist
= wit + as
Tautonyms
Words
that consist of the duplication of the same letters. They can be hyphenated.
Testes
– tes
Twenty-twenty
– twenty
Murmur
= mur
Panagrams
This
is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.
Pack
my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
Malapropisms
When
words are confused for one another.
Statue
(statute) of limitations
Child
progeny (prodigy)
Yogisms
Yogi
Beara was a colorful Hall of Fame baseball player for the New York Yankees, as
well as a coach and manager. He was
notorious for making funny statements.
“It’s
like déjà vu all over again.””
“The
future ain’t what it used to be.”
Orynyms
A
phrase or string of words that sounds the same as another phrase but is spelled
differently.
Ice
cream = I scream
The
stuffy nose (stuff he knows) can be harmful.
Anagrams
Re-arrange
letters of a word to form a different word.
Diet
= tide
Eat =
tea
Aptanagrams
Re-arrange
the letters of a phrase to state something in a different form but with a
similar connected meaning.
A
shoplifter + has to pilfer
The
eyes = they see
Antigrams
Re-arrange
the letters of a word to form one or more words that act as an antonym (the
opposite).
Earliest
– rise late
Funeral
– real fun
Acronyms
When
the initials of a group form a word
ACNE
= Action Committee for Narcotics Education
CRASH
– Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways
Bacronyms
Turning
an existing word into an acronym
WIT
– whatever it takes
PUSH
– pray until something happens
SMART
– specific, measured, agreed, realistic, time bound
Paradoxical
Statements
A
contradictory statement that rings true.
“A
mask tells us more than a face.”
--Oscar
Wilde
“A
real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
--Confucious
Oxymorons
Expressions
that contain elements or words with opposite or contradictory meanings.
Random
order
Jumbo
shirimp
Military
intelligence
Business
ethics
Science
fiction
Necessary
never
I’d
give my left arm to be ambidextrous
Word
That Sound Like a Letter
Sea
= c
Be =
b
Are
= r
Tea
= t
Palindromes
A
word or phrase that can be read backwards and forwards.
Mom
Racecar
Sexes
Paraprosdokian
Describes
a type of speech where the end of the sentence twists, contradicts, or to
totally change the expectation of the reader’s interpretation of the initial
part of the statement. These usually end
as a joke.
“I’ve
had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”
--Groucho
Marx
“Change
is inevitable, except from a vending machine.”
--Anonymous
Semordnilaps
This
is a specific kind of anagram, where a word spelled backward forms a different
word.
Bard
– drab
Bats
– stab
Naps
- span
“The book-collector is the hermaphrodite of literature neither a reader nor a writer.”
--Shane Leslie
“To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them. As it is, the act of purchasing them is often mistaken for the assimilation and mastering of their content.”
--Arthur Schopenhauer
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Brian Feinblum’s views,
opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his
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at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the
third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and
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