“Oh, that’s a good word! A nice round word!”
My sister comes up with the craziest things sometimes. Well, perhaps not crazy, but she names them crazily. A good example is the phenomenon known as round words. It really has nothing to do with roundness, but it’s the term she’s attached to words that are fun to say. Examples of round words include round, onomatopoeia, lugubrious, abscond, obfuscate, austempering, oscilloscope, and decalcomania. When I ask her for some round words, she says, “You will know a round word when you hear it!” However, if one does not have solid knowledge of a round word to begin with, how can one know a round word on sight? It is a puzzlement indeed… But if all else fails, ask my sister. She’ll be able to tell you if a word is round or not. Round words… gotta love ’em.
Date posted: November 26, 2000
Notes: This quote was repeated on the Main Page for about six hours on January 22, 2001 in order to facilitate one of a number of changes that fixed a bunch of bugs in the then-new database system.