Google retained its top spot for the fourth straight month, and shows no signs of loosening its grip on that rank. Integrity moved back up four spots toward the top, where it usually is found, while aloof moved down nine spots to No. 20. It is interesting to note that it was just about a year ago that aloof first cracked the Top Twenty, for reasons that were never clear. Perhaps, for equally unclear reasons, its run is over. Stay tuned.

Quagmire, inept, irony, and agnostic slipped off the list entirely this month, although quagmire and inept lurk below in the No. 23 and 24 spots. Irony slipped a little further, to No. 34. This continues a slide for irony that began in February. We ascribed the slip last month to the benign effects of Valentine's Day. We ascribe its further slip this month to the effects of spring break and irony getting a bit of a vacation as fewer college term papers are written. We'll go out on a limb here and predict that irony will return to the list soon. Agnostic routinely slips on and off the list. We think we will see that one back on the list soon also.

In addition to eclectic and conundrum, newcomers to the list this month included perspicacious and ensure. Ensure is a familiar item on the list, as people often struggle with making sense of ensure, assure, and insure. Eclectic and conundrum show up less often, and this may be a first for perspicacious. As a way of welcoming perspicacious to the list, we'll look at it in this month's Word Profile, drawn for the pages of Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage.