Author Archives: WordSnooper.com

About WordSnooper.com

Lexie Kahn: Word Snooper is a blog about words and their origins at WordSnooper.com.

Gaffers, Best Boys and Python Wranglers: Weird Job Titles in Film Credits

Posted on May 16, 2013

Ever wonder how the “Second-Best Boy” feels? While Lexie’s away, learn about strange movie jobs titles in Mental Floss.

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Palindromes, Anagrams and Other Word-Game Names

Posted on May 16, 2013

While Lexie’s still underground, here are some playful words about words from Mental Floss: http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50544/11-names-alphabetical-antics-and-other-word-games

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Words That Are Their Own Opposites: More Mental Floss

Posted on April 3, 2013

Ready to do some trimming? We’ve talked about self-contradictory words — known as “contronyms” (or “contranyms” and a variety of other aliases) — here before, but I’ve rounded up a selection of 14 of the best at Mental Floss.

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Extra Lex: Lonely Negatives in Mental Floss

Posted on March 29, 2013

  We interrupt Lexie’s adventures for another Mental Flossing (which is entirely different from brainwashing). Disgruntled, disgusted and disheveled: Negative words that have lost their positive partners: Mental Floss

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Batsh*t Crazy

Posted on March 21, 2013

“What about [ahem] …guano,” Batman wanted to know. “Well, as Steven Pinker points out in The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, the number of Eskimo words for ‘snow’ is small potatoes compared to the range … Continue reading →

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Excavating Bat Cave Etymology

Posted on March 20, 2013

Well, I went off on a tangent taking about the bat- related to beating and battering and never did give an account of the flapping and fluttering bat that “Batman” asked me about. Here’s what the costumed character wanted to … Continue reading →

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Batting About “Debate” and “Combat”

Posted on March 12, 2013

As I hopped on the Dash bus down Franklin toward home I couldn’t get that Batman character out of my mind. He was batty, all right, but he certainly isn’t the only one in this burg. That’s part of the … Continue reading →

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Extra Lex: 6 Words English Got from Hindi

Posted on March 6, 2013

More Mental Floss to keep your convolutions minty fresh. Sure, there are more, like dungarees, dinghy, jungle and gunny (as in sack), but I think these are the most interesting words English got from Hindi: http://mentalfloss.com/article/49137/6-words-english-got-hindi

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Ben Franklin Gets a Charge Out of an Invention and Coins a Phrase

Posted on February 21, 2013

My poor battered brain must have been suffering from CDS (caffeine deficiency slump). In pondering the origins of the word “battery,” I short-circuited the discussion, completely skipping over the electric battery. So what does a cell that stores chemical energy … Continue reading →

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Battling Etymologists

Posted on February 15, 2013

By now there were two dozen kids, each in possession of a cell phone with a distinct cry. The place buzzed, rumbled and hiccupped like an earthquake in a cuckoo clock factory. But I was still intently batting around words … Continue reading →

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