Lots of various kinds of women's clothing this week (partlet, peignoir, pelerine, peplos), but most importantly, the discovery of pleonasm: the use of needless words. Such a word is not only indicative of much of what I am doing in reading and blogging about the Scrabble Dictionary, which contains many a needless word, but pleonasm is also a semantic paradox in itself—when was the last time you needed the word pleonasm?
(These kinds of self-referential words, by the way, are part of a fascinating subset of linguistics called autological terms. Click here for a partial list. My favorite is shibboleth, since knowing the word shibboleth is a cue to other people who know the word that you are cued in)
One could also argue that there is no such thing as a pleonasm since Scrabble ensures the need of all the vocabulary you can get (minus one-lettered words and words that go beyond the availability of tiles, I suppose).
Anyway. I also had fun with pangram on Twitter.
(These kinds of self-referential words, by the way, are part of a fascinating subset of linguistics called autological terms. Click here for a partial list. My favorite is shibboleth, since knowing the word shibboleth is a cue to other people who know the word that you are cued in)
One could also argue that there is no such thing as a pleonasm since Scrabble ensures the need of all the vocabulary you can get (minus one-lettered words and words that go beyond the availability of tiles, I suppose).
Anyway. I also had fun with pangram on Twitter.

Just one image today, for pandanus: a tropical plant. My son is eating a pandanus key in the Marshall Islands (taken 2011). You either love pandanus or hate it. I hated it, and then I loved it. It is a remarkable, very time-consuming fruit. Islanders use it not only for its critical vitamins but also to floss.
⚛ Units of the Week
Parasang: a Persian unit of distance
Parsec: a unit of astronomical distance
Parton: a hypothetical atomic particle
Pascal: a unit of pressure
Pataca: a monetary unit of Macao
Pengo: a former monetary unit of Hungary
Penni: a formerly used Finnish coin
Penny: a coin of the United Kingdom
Percent: one part in a hundred
Perigon: an angle equal to 360 degrees
Peseta: a monetary unit of Spain
Pesewa: a monetary unit of Ghana
Peso: a monetary unit of various Spanish-speaking countries
Petabyte: one quadrillion bytes
Pfennig: a formerly used bronze coin of Germany
!!! Unexpected Words of the Week
Pandy: to punish by striking the hand
Pangram: a sentence that includes all the letters of the alphabet
Pardee/pardi/pardie/pardy: a mild oath (meaning "certainly" and coming from the corruption of "By God!" Most likely to be mistaken as "party.")
Parlando: sung in a manner suggestive of speech
Parosmia: a distortion of the sense of smell
Pash: to strike violently
Patagium: a wing membrane of a bat
Patootie: the buttocks
Patzer: an inept chess player
Paxwax: the nuchal ligament (duh!)
Peace, v.: to be or become silent
Peen: to beat with the non-flat end of a hammerhead
Penology: the science of the punishment of crime
Peopler: one that peoples
Perdu: a soldier sent on a dangerous mission (isn't that a little pessimistic?)
Petnaper: one who steals a pet
Phaeton: a light carriage (carriage sighting!)
♡ Favorite Words of the Week
Pampero: a cold, dry wind
Panhuman: pertaining to all humanity
Parallax: an apparent optical displacement of an object
Paraph: a flourish at the end of a signature
Parve: made without milk or meat
Patency: the state of being obvious
Peavey: a lever used to move logs
Penster: a writer
Peonage: the condition of being a peon
Pergola: a shaded shelter or passageway
Peripety: a sudden change in a course of events
Parasang: a Persian unit of distance
Parsec: a unit of astronomical distance
Parton: a hypothetical atomic particle
Pascal: a unit of pressure
Pataca: a monetary unit of Macao
Pengo: a former monetary unit of Hungary
Penni: a formerly used Finnish coin
Penny: a coin of the United Kingdom
Percent: one part in a hundred
Perigon: an angle equal to 360 degrees
Peseta: a monetary unit of Spain
Pesewa: a monetary unit of Ghana
Peso: a monetary unit of various Spanish-speaking countries
Petabyte: one quadrillion bytes
Pfennig: a formerly used bronze coin of Germany
!!! Unexpected Words of the Week
Pandy: to punish by striking the hand
Pangram: a sentence that includes all the letters of the alphabet
Pardee/pardi/pardie/pardy: a mild oath (meaning "certainly" and coming from the corruption of "By God!" Most likely to be mistaken as "party.")
Parlando: sung in a manner suggestive of speech
Parosmia: a distortion of the sense of smell
Pash: to strike violently
Patagium: a wing membrane of a bat
Patootie: the buttocks
Patzer: an inept chess player
Paxwax: the nuchal ligament (duh!)
Peace, v.: to be or become silent
Peen: to beat with the non-flat end of a hammerhead
Penology: the science of the punishment of crime
Peopler: one that peoples
Perdu: a soldier sent on a dangerous mission (isn't that a little pessimistic?)
Petnaper: one who steals a pet
Phaeton: a light carriage (carriage sighting!)
♡ Favorite Words of the Week
Pampero: a cold, dry wind
Panhuman: pertaining to all humanity
Parallax: an apparent optical displacement of an object
Paraph: a flourish at the end of a signature
Parve: made without milk or meat
Patency: the state of being obvious
Peavey: a lever used to move logs
Penster: a writer
Peonage: the condition of being a peon
Pergola: a shaded shelter or passageway
Peripety: a sudden change in a course of events
(Pages 407–420)