Crystal Clear Proofing: Wednesday's Weird Word

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Wednesday's Weird Word

Wednesday's Word will be a weekly feature wherein I'll introduce a not-very-common and/or not-frequently-used word.

Today's Wednesday's Word is: SPRINGAL.

Springal is a noun meaning: a strong, young boy; an active, springy young man.

The farmer decided to hire a springal from the nearby village to help harvest his crops.

Try using SPRINGAL in conversations and see the response you get! Have fun with it! See you back next Wednesday for another new, weird word!

Note: The source for many of the words I'll be featuring can be found at Luciferous Logolepsy. They are so obscure, I was actually unable to find some of them at a couple of common online dictionary references, such as The Free Dictionary.com.

4 comments:

Elizabeth Spann CraigOctober 28, 2009 at 6:40:00 AM CDT
I'm hoping your surgery goes well today, Crystal, and that you'll soon feel as chipper as a springal!

Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
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Creative ChroniclerOctober 28, 2009 at 7:46:00 AM CDT
Great word. It has a medieval feel to it and I may have to use it in a story.

Our thoughts are with you today, my dear friend. Speedy recovery.
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The Old SillyOctober 28, 2009 at 9:19:00 AM CDT
New one on The Old Silly!

Will pray for a fully successful and speedily recovered from surgery for you, Crystal. Now - who can I find to talk to and try this springal word on? ;)
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Elspeth FutcherOctober 28, 2009 at 12:59:00 PM CDT
My thoughts are with you today. Recover quickly. Excellent word.

Elspeth
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Reader Comments

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Crystal Clear Proofing posts the greatest writing/editing tutorials. As an editor myself, I go there often to learn subtle nuances in the craft of good writing, as she has this marvelous ability to make those fuzzy, sometimes hard to determine, gray areas of correct writing, well…Crystal Clear!

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I have learned much from your blog.

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I.E AND E.G.
Thank you! I've never know what those meant or how to properly use them!

JOINT AND SEPARATE POSSESSION
Thank you so much! I had a hard time finding what joint and seperate possession means! Once again, thank you!

WAIT AND AWAIT
Oh, I love this site! Do you have a past post about lay, lie and all that good stuff?

This is a very clear and succinct explanation of the distinction between the two words."

LAY AND LIE
OMG! This is GREAT!!! I might actually understand it now! Thanks so much, Crystal. This is an awesome site!

You have a great way of explaining words. Your blog is a wonderful source for writers. I'll have to search your post to see if you have "affect" "effect", I know I use those improperly often.

AFFECT AND EFFECT
Thank you for this great post! I have printed it to keep it handy. Hopefully, it will positively affect my future writing.

Thanks for this post Crystal. I was going to actually email you and request that you explain the difference between these two, because these are usually a problem for me. Thanks again!

Another classic, Crystal Clear explanation...this tutorial contains some subtle nuances well worth being reminded of. Thanks!

THAT AND WHICH
Another excellent grammar lesson!

You are really rockin' this grammar instruction! I am currently working on a short story for class, which must be submitted this week, and this was very helpful. Did I get it right? (Note from CCP: she did get it right!)

WHO AND WHOM
Perfect! Got it...I keep all these tutorials in a bookmarked file now.

Great tutorial!! I'm saving this one.

Another great tutorial.

QUOTATION MARKS
Great post. Good tips about punctuation.

AWHILE AND A WHILE
Another fine tutorial. Got it added to my Clear as a Crystal file.

What a wonderful tip!

Oh!!! Those examples are perfect and it really makes sense now. Thanks!

APOSTROPHE USE WITH POSSESSIVE NOUNS
Excellent and very thorough. Got this one copied and stored along with ALL your tutorials in my Crystal Clear Writing folder. :)

Another excellent post. I always have trouble with these.

Now that my eyes have re-focused after glazing over, I can say that this is why writers need to hire editors--So they don't have to think too much about grammar. I can't keep all the darn rules straight in my head. Thanks for doing what you do. I am cutting and pasting this into a new word file for grammar tips.

Good one! I'm tweeting this.

Clear and concise. Thanks.

That possessive S has at some points been the bane of my existence...so thanks for this.

Great article! Thanks for the examples too.

Confusing topic, excellent post. Many people really do not know at all how to handle these pesky little things, so thanks for 'splaining it so nicely.

Excellent post! I enjoyed this a lot...Great blog. :)

LEVELS OF EDITING
Crystal, great explanation and post today - I copied it as a word doc and stored it in my "Crystal Clear" file.

You've written a wonderful post that throws light on a rather mysterious (to me) subject.

ONE WORD VS. TWO WORDS
Another great post.

Thanks for sharing this list and clarifying these points.

WRITING DATES AND TIMES
Writing dates and times is always confusing for me, so I really appreciate this, Crystal! Thanks.

Great tips. This is very helpful. Thanks.

Awesome tips. I make some of those mistakes.

I will copy and paste into a writing tips folder I've started to gather all these handy dandy things in one place. Thank you.

Great post!

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Good stuff Crystal!

Very good and clear lesson here. Copied and pasted it into a Word Doc and saved it in my "Crystal Clear" file!

You have some good reference article(s) here, Crystal. :-)

PREPOSITIONS
Excellent tutorial, got it saved as usual.

Thanks for this! Bookmarking it for easy reference.

SEMICOLONS
Another great and much needed post for people like me. This is why you are the Grammar Goddess!

Oh I agree. You are the Grammar Goddess. I have the worst time with commas and semicolons. Thanks for the helpful post. I'll have to print this out and keep it close.

I bow to you, Grammar Goddess. Another one to save in my growing list from your posts.

Oh great Grammar Goddess, how I worship you! Thanks so much for this post.

You make it look so easy!

Good one!

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COLONS
As always, awesome advice and clarification.

Thanks, Crystal. Helpful, as always.

Great advice, Crystal! I'm tweeting.

Helpful as always. Thanks.

DASHES
You should really turn your blog into a book. Now THAT is a grammar book I would buy!

Thank you so much for this post. The explanations and examples made it "crystal clear" for me. :-)

I like your distinction between the use of dash and colon. It makes sense to me.

Most helpful. I just had to change a host of en dashes to em dashes in my ms.

HYPHENS
Thank you very much for this post!

Great tips, Crystal! Thanks so much.

Such great advice! Thanks for the valuable lesson!!

Great post. Thanks.

Wow! Thank you for taking the time to clear up some of the confusion about hyphens. As always, a very helpful post.

These are wonderful guidelines, Crystal, thank you!

Another fine tutorial.

I'm pretty sure I don't use hyphens correctly. It was good to read through this advice and think about how I do use them. Thanks.

Good post, great blog!

OVER THE TOP AWARD
Congratulations, you and your blog are "Over the Top."

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FIFTEEN PUNCTUATION FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Great summary.

Love this post!! I needed this one. I think I might have to frame it and stick it beside my desk as a reminder when I'm writing! You rock!!

Great tips! I'm tweeting.

Crystal this is excellent. I've got it stored in my Crystal Clear file folder.

Yeah, I've created a Crystal folder as well and cut and paste all your gems.

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Great tips as always :)

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EFFECTIVE WRITING
I think this is one of my favorite rules post yet. So helpful!! May have to post this one on my desk too, I know I'll get one of those flip book easels so I can have all your post handy and in my face to remind me. I need that, you are an editor extraodinaire!!!

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CLAUSES
Thanks! I love these tutorials.

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CHALLENGES
Great idea for a proofreader post!

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Great test! Thanks, I love your posts!

***************************************************************************************** "Editors and proof readers are the unrecognized support structure of books. Without them, books would take authors twice as long to complete." Comment left by Leigh Russell (CRIME FICTION)