Pyongyang Is in the Room

Some verbally-oriented points of interest for this soon-to-be-over year.

• “I, for One, Welcome Our New Verbal Overlords,” in which I completed my alphabetical run-through of strange and wonderful words.
• “The Melancholy, British Version of Hee Haw,” in which I finally understand why Eeyore is the member of the Hundred-Acre Woods with a name that didn’t match the pattern that the rest seem to follow.
• “Bring Your Passport,” in which I considered taking a vacation to Clu Clu Land.
• “The Ever-Recurring Invocation of Infernal Imps,” in which I write about the marital habits of Jewish demons and the Devil’s panel of international ambassadors.
• “Fluttering Fleas But Not Flabby Flannel,” in which I discover the magic of phonesthemes.
• “Low Down Rose Sucker,” in which I looked at various forms of sucking in Spanish.
• “Amsterdam Breakfast,” in which the difference between hash browns and hash brownies became supremely important.
• “Do You Not Hear the Thunder?” in which the greatest song by Men at Work — and, thus, of all Australian bands as well — is mocked for not being about anything in particular.
• “The Tiny Earth,” in which I claim there’s value to badly translated video games of my youth.
• “Some Folk’ll Never Eat a Skunk,” in which I collected the names of the various children of Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.
• “Toupee of Shame,” in which I found out where the word merkin comes from.
• “Blame Chuck Klosterman,” in which I ponder the opposite of apples.
• “‘Who’s on First?’ (Revised and Improved),” which is just that.
• “Rather Than Have Her Riddles Answered,” in which Wordsmith’s A.Word.A.Day is eerily prophetic.
• “Heartless Heartbreaker,” in which I go on about the difficulty of texting swear words.