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surreptitious. It sounds mysterious.

"hollow" just like this topic!

does it really need saying that this is so subjective an area as to be virtually meaningless? and that over time virtually all words in a given language will FEEL like what they mean in that language, regardless of their origins?

geez, what a waste of airtime, though my suspicion that the weekly standard has always been a waste of trees is now firmly bolstered.

inchoate--the sounds of the syllables are made from the back of your throat--formed but not quite, like the meaning of the word

Oneiric - suggestive of dreams

"Brouhaha"... it just sounds like a ruckus

Veeblefetzer and Potrezebie. Mad magazine has so affected our consciousness.

Mr. Bottum, the word apple sounds like what it is to people who bite into an apple with the skin on. To freaks who peel & carve up apples, it probably doesn't remind them of the mouth movement required to eat them.

my favorite word that sounds like what it describes: Squinch, as in squinched into the back seat with my sisters. Not sure it's actually a dictionary word, but I hear it in common use.

I don't think skeevy is a NY word, but probably skews to youth. It's been floating around in pop culture for a while.
-- M

Smarmy

ew.

Hey Brian, in regards to the word Skivvy
Comes from the British/female servant who does menial tasks/drudge

Here is a word I loathe: It is so hot that thinking about it "exacerbates" the situation.

brian--are you and this guest kidding about "athwart"? don't you ever sail?

and pretending that "agenbite" is unknown? joyce uses it all thru Ulysses. time for some agenbite of inwit, eh?

why keep mispronouncing onomatopoeia? this guest's expertise is way supposititious; hard to believe english is his native language.

Skivvy: British Word=
female servant who does menial work; drudge

ooooh it's ALL about SMORGASBOARD! sounds just like a large assortment of food piled on a table...

it's so hot that

My name is Moiz and my middle school music teacher would always call me 'moist' and I thought it was pretty lame that he couldn't just say what it is.

I've noticed that nouns referring to round parts of the body or

Baby
Buttock/Butt
Bosom
Boob
Bottom
Breast
Boil (noun, not words).

Is there something to the fact that the letter B itself has all these round parts to it? That most of those things have cleavages and the letter itself has cleavage?

I've wondered about it for a long time.

I'm glad SOMEONE finally said ...

onomatopoeia ...

My word is ... whinny.

Fiesty!

Punk. Punk sounds punk. Also bottom ( bottum).

Schivo in Italian basically means disgusting, the same as skeevy. Not certain if the origin is Italian or Scandinavian, but definitely close enough

disGusting shows its meaning through its G sound.
it comes from French, but in French the g sound is not so explicit like in English

I grew up in NYC and never knew "skeevy" was a New York-ism.

How about "balloon"

Pugnacious

twitter

Does Mr. Bottum have a friend named Puck?

My word is 'sesquipedalian', which means given
to the use of long words. You have to be one
to say it.

BTW Schifare, pron skee-FAH-rey
to avoid with disgust

mumble, bumble, tumble, rumble, stumble, crumble, fumble

ROBUST is a great word! I love saying it, but for whatever reason it only seems to really apply to coffee!

DIRGE

Cold.

Brian--Between your repeatedly saying, "the legal price of milk" rather than, "the suggested price of milk" in relation to the GUIDELINE on it; your segment on, "it's so hot that..."; and this segment, your show today has been disinformational and inane.

Always hated the word "sandwich" when the d is especially emphasized...how unappetizing to eat sand! Ew.

Scab. It sounds crusty and nasty, but still something you want to pick.

For some exceptional examples of "delicious" English words, one needs only to read aloud this first paragraph of Edgar Allen Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher." Enjoy!
---------

"DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher...."

That's an incomplete definition of lugubrious - see definition below:

lu·gu·bri·ous Audio Help /lʊˈgubriəs, -ˈgyu-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[loo-goo-bree-uhs, -gyoo-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective mournful, dismal, or gloomy, esp. in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner: lugubrious songs of lost love.

Bumptious!

My favorite is "misled", as in miss-LED. Until I was at least 18, I read it as "MY-zeld". It sounded right. And it was useful. "Ye gods, I've been MY-zeld! Ever since I learned the truth, I have missed that word!!

smorgasbord

Appropriate for today:

swelter or sweltering

a "thwart" is a seat in a boat or a similar structural member that runs "athwart ships", i.e. across the fore and aft cenerline.

how about "squamous" or "squamulous"?

pulchritude

What about the fact that all sorts of nouns involving ROUND things begin with "B?"

1)Baby
2)Bosom
3)Breast
4)Buttock/Butt
5)Boob

Is there something to that? I guess their happy things and "b"'s a happy sound?

Then again their is "boil" (noun, not verb), which isn't so happy, but it is round.

BADA-BING!

serenDIPity

Schifare, to avoid

chortle

prestidigitation

exude

Mellifluous. It is what it means.

languorous
squalid
benevolent
soliloquy
imp
perplexed
elegy
sanguine

just a few . . .

Salacious.

Let's say that again.

Salacious.

Deliciously dirty, wouldn't you say?

tasty

indefatigable

Algorithmic Fluidity

I remember a brochure from my teenage years that is an example of the opposite: a word that sounds NOTHING like it is. The title of that brochure - Chlamydia is not a flower.

juxtaposition

1. an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast.
2. the state of being close together or side by side.

I never get tired of using this one.

Belligerent

It's not a common word but the composer's name
Zoltan Kodaly just ROOOllls out of your mouth!

BLUBBER

Cadence

scrumptious!

brouhaha

shenanigans

I have always wondered why we use "pumpkin" as a term of enderment. Pumpkins are fat, dopey, with a green thing plopped on top of it.

natter

Although it's a proper name, not a common word, I Love the wonderful sound of the composer's name, Zoltan Kodaly. It just rooollls out of your mouth!

Two words that are similar in um...feel.

Moist and Ointment.

Both make the mouth slop around the sounds, just perfect.

OCEAN! It just sounds as waves swooshing. ALways loved that word and I love the ocean,too.

PHLEGM (which is ICKY)

perspicacious

Indefatigable.

I've always felt that slovenly was an appropriate word fit for what it means.

bamboozle

Throttle.

great! :)

I do not see or hear or feel or ultimately agree with the thesis.

I think it is silly - is silly one of those words? But I love language so whatever...

Shambling

lugubrious

Dagnabit!!!

I love that word!

snarky

Buff

in the buff, she's is buff, buff the car

Thwart is a common sailing term (Buckley was an avid yachtsman).

supercilious=haughty, arrogant. It sounds like it means frivolous, silly, but it doesn't.

"Neo-Con": it sounds just as sinister as it actually is. Oh wait, what publication is the guest from again?

very simple: Bump

lackadaisical