Weird Words to Help You Win at Scrabble

Because the Internet is nothing if not instructive, (and totally believable), I give you Mr. Language Person!

Thank you, thank you! It's great to be here again! Well, to be anywhere, actually. But I have a couple of new words to add to your vocabulary. (Eat your heart out, Bill O'Reilly!)

The first word I actually ran into on the Interwebs: Feorirling , which, contrary to public opinion is not a Swedish sex act! It was a coin that circulated in the Republic of Ireland between 1928 and 1962. It was equal in value to 1/960 of one Irish pound. (A feorirling for your thoughts??")

The second, was in an old volume of poetry:  Coign
As in,

"In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland..."

So I looked it up in the dictionary, which gave me the following translation:

archaic spelling of quoin.

Well! That certainly settled that! So then I had to look up quoin: 

a projecting corner or angle of a wall or building. (or maybe, a cliff!)

The next time you're playing Scrabble and end up with an extra G or Q, see if you can work one of these words into the game. People will marvel at your depth of knowledge...after you have the fun of seeing them incredulously challenging your word and getting schooled by you.

And if you ever find a feorirling at a coign of a building, wall or cliff, you'll know exactly how to describe it!

You're welcome!

New Features

A couple of new features for Proof Positive:
1) A custom search engine to search the site for good stuff (or stuff to use against me!)
2) A Dictionary.com search, in case I become too lapidary or eristic! Heh.

Results of the “Lapidary” and “Eristic” Poll.

Too small a sample to draw many conclusions from.
I was familiar with the word “lapidary” as it referred to polishing gemstones. But, Pre-Buckley, I’d never heard of people described as such!

characterized by an exactitude and extreme refinement that suggests gem cutting

Exactitude! That described Bill Buckley. And "polished" works, too!

Eristic was the tougher nut to crack! Not in one's typical vocabulary.

given to disputation for its own sake and often employing specious arguments

I am lapidary, but not eristic when I use big words.

Spoken like a true sesquipedalian! Heh.