What are some words with unique or fascinating characteristics?

I always have had the feeling that onomatopoeia was an interesting word, precisely because it is not heterological.

“This”. Not as in “This ___________”; just “This”. A perfectly ordinary word when used as a modifier for another noun, it takes on a truly transcendent dimension when used alone. It has no intrinsic boundaries. If you let it, it just billows out to encompass the whole of present reality, engulfing you and me in the process. I know of no other word that can do that.

Copasetic
Read a little about it. It’s origins are unknown and, in fact, is believed by some to have originated in North America, making it a word mostly used by Americans.

@Les Great word for this discusssion.

Although there is no consensus among scholars, I lean strongly toward what the usage shows. he word was introduced shortly after the turn of the century by black jazz musicians and that to me indicates that the Creole origin is the likeliest explanation, particularly because the meaning is almost exactly the same, which is not the case with the Yiddish phrase touted as a possible origin.

“Copacetic came from the Creole French word coupersètique, which meant “able to be coped with,” “able to cope with anything and everything,” “in good form,” and also “having a healthy appetite or passion for life or love.” Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition

word

< < betting with himself on the amount of time before someone suggests this.

I love the word “if”...use it with this( ...)...and you can get out of any jam if…

Mongrel is an interesting word. From what I’ve read, it is a “mongrel” word itself, native to English, with no known origin anywhere else. Interesting with English being a mongrel language.

“Forty” is the only number who’s letters are in alphabetical order.

Another word that fascinates me is “run.” It seems so simple, but check out how many definitions it has!

Your question made my brain hurt.

Pronounced words exist either typed or written in both alphanumeric and letter symbols, not short or terse but awkwardly displayed.

A buddy just told me this one: crwth. A word where a single ‘w’ is treated as a vowel? Crazy!

@wildflower, I assume you know how to pronounce @phoenyx’s word, yes?

@phoenyx- W actually is a vowel. You can substitute a U in place of any W and it’s pronounced the same. Same goes for Y and I. Still, crwth looks odd, like its Welsh.

whelp – uhelp? wrap – urap? wuss – uuss?

Hmm, ‘w’ is kinda ‘u’-like, but isn’t very well behaved. It seems like a vowel when tagging along behind other vowels, but it doesn’t always act very vowel-like when by itself. Now you’ve piqued my interest; research time.

@phoenix, re:forty, “one” is the only number whose letters are in reverse alphabetical order.

It bothers me that indescribable is an adjective. If something is indescribable you shouldn’t be able to describe it as “indescribable,” should you? I want a word that means something like “can only be described by this word at the exclusion of all other description.”

I just discovered that there is a place called Blorenge and it rhymes with “orange.” Apparently it is by a cwm (which is another word featuring a ‘w’ as a vowel).

Well, I didn’t mean to, but I’ve started dominating this thread. I’m going to quit now before the DCD completely takes over.

crwth and cwm are borrowed from Welsh, where the letter w can represent a vowel sound.