March 2007

In Case You Were Wondering

On February 23 (and in the days that followed), the words gardyloo, chalcedony, and eleemosynary received a greater than usual number of look-ups in the online dictionary. Their connection? Read on.

All three terms appeared in Slate.com's column "Does the president know what the word 'neocon' means?" by Timothy Noah. Noah listed the three as examples of words one might reasonably expect President George W. Bush to be unfamiliar with, or words whose meanings it might be difficult to remember. We don't know about President Bush, but plenty of readers clicked through for the definitions of gardyloo, chalcedony, and eleemosynary.