English Elucidations.

I was having a little fun looking around online for Englishy stuff. and I found a couple that were neat - and might come up at a cocktail party to make you look just a touch more educated. then again ...

- There is no continuation in the series of continuation words past three! Once, Twice, Thrice. that's it. four times doesn't exist. nothing past three at ALL actually. apparently there was never a need to mention that something happened more than three times?? Quince, while cute, is not five times in a row - but a little fruit tree in the rose family.

- However, we do care about series in longer order. The sequence continues after Primary, Secondary, Tertiary; with quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, denary ... and a few others sprinkled further out in the mix.

- pangrams are sentences that contain all of the letters of the alphabet, at least once. the most famous is the one we used to do for typing: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. there is no sentence using english words (there is a Hebrew one) that only uses each letter once, but there is a 28-letter example that uses the letters "i" and "u" twice: Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox ... but only because they are all real words ... umm ... not sure that it makes any sense though.

- Unisex means having to do with both sexes ... but the combining form uni- does indeed normally mean 'one', coming as it does from Latin unus 'one'. And the dictionary entries for unisexual and unisexuality, which are older than unisex, have the meanings one would expect ... what were they thinking?

- Similarly, alcoholic is a person who has a preternatural disposition to alcohol ... hence the ic suffix. So ... someone who works far too much and can't seem to stop their addiction would be a workic ... not a workaholic. are they addicted to workahol?

- A contranym is a word that has it's own opposite meaning when used in different context. For example: cleave. To cleave to someone that you love, is to stick to them, or adhere closely. But to cleave from someone that you hate, is to split from, or break away. one word - totally opposite meanings - sweet!

- Speaking of opposites:
The opposite of nocturnal is diurnal. animals that come out at twilight are crepuscular ...
The opposite of hibernation is aestivation. rather - dormancy in the summer.
There is no recognized opposite to the word exceed.

- In an interesting turn of phrase, biweekly means BOTH twice a week AND once every two weeks. Similarly with bimonthly, and biyearly. ... so that magazine subscription/prescription that you just got ...

- The only word in the English language that ends in 'mt' is dreamt.

nothing mind blowing per se. except maybe those last three bullets. Just a compilation for y'all.