A Collacon on Collacon

Mellen and I were exploring the depths of logology one day, when she suddenly stopped short, and uttered a single word, collacon. \u27Collacon?\u27 My dear Mellen --- ? That, she replied, is your challenge

Captain Smith\u27s Vlgrie

Harry B. Partridge, in Ad Memoriam Demetrii (August 1986), introduced a newly-discovered word ending in -gry. I was very interested in this announcement, since I Have been working on a little treatise of such words; ulgry increased my list to nineteen examples

Onomasticon III

In his November 1978 article, Logopoeia, Philip M. Cohen defines his title word as a coined word meaning \u27word-coinging.\u27 This definition does not do an established word justice. Logopoeia was defined by Ezar Pound -- who may have coined it -- in ABC of Reading (1934); and while logopoeia is literally making of words, Pound gives the word a much richer definition. The accepted meaning of this and most (all?) other -poeia words (from the Greek poiein, to make) are in the following onomasticon. Perhaps this should have been subtitled Much Ado About \u27Making\u27

Onomasticon IV

\u27Wright\u27 is a word whose earliest recorded use was, according to the OED, circa 695 A.D. The word is now considered archaic or dialectic, but in its 1300-year history \u27wright\u27 has spawned many attributed and combined words and surnames, the subject of this listing. All words are from Webster\u27s Second, the OED, or S. Baring-Gould\u27s Family Names and Their Story. Words which double as surnames are indicated by an asterisk and are either recorded in Baring-Gould or known to the author; if a reader knows someone whose surname is in this list, but not noted as such, please send it in as a correction. I have provided definitions (in parentheses) for words listed without definition

Onomasticon II

Little did I envision the difficulties encountered in building a list of -cide words. In general, such words are a combined form, signifying \u27killer\u27 or \u27killing\u27 (from the Latin caedere, to cut or kill). There are, however, three groups of exceptions: (1) development from other, similar roots; (2) neologisms, many of which are nonsensical; and (3) accidents of etymology

Onomasticon I

One of my favorite pastimes is gathering together words that share an interesting suffix -- or perhaps share a similar spelling, regardless of etymology

In Goodly Gree: With Goodwill

I know that I was aware of the -gry puzzle by 1976 because, during the spring of that year, I clipped a newspaper advertisement solely because it contained the name Hungry Bungry. The version I remember was simple: There are three words in English which end in -gry. What are they