20 Of My Favourite Words

1) Petrichor
2) Fantod
3) Mook
4) Jamoke
5) Kiki
6) Snohomish
7) Bazillion
8) Pot-pie
9) Bugger-all
10) Dazzle
11) Quincunx
12) Tambour
13) Xylophone
14) Liquify
15) Meddlesome
16) Mesmer
17) Incise
18) Sibilance
19) Eschew
20) Scrum

20 Of My Least Favourite Words

1) Oppressed
2) Hump
3) Poverty
4) Hottie
5) Coerce
6) Bowel
7) Clownface
8) Snot
9) Loogie
10) Rectum
11) Gaol
12) Arbiter
13) Linoleum
14) Paunch
15) Turd
16) CEO
17) Hole
18) Labradoodle
19) Jowl
20) Putrefy

When Potatoes Kill

As I was waking up, a miraculous thing was occurring, which was that Oliver was also awake. And we then got into a conversation which engendered this dialogue;
ME - “Oh, it never occurred to me to put harmonica into the same realm as oboe, bassoon, saxophone and clarinet”.
OB “That’s because it’s not”
ME “But you just said about reed instruments...”
OB “Yeah like that thing” (hand gesture)
ME “Accordion?”
OB “Yeah and that keyboard thing you have...
ME “Harmonium?”
OB “Yeah, and probably that little electric organ too”.
ME “Oh. But what about the fact that if you play a harmonica, and you have it all broke in good, that you move those things with your tongue?”
OB “That’s just air openings not the reeds”.
ME “Hmmm”.

Which brings us to the next question. Which is, if those are manipulatable air openings, then is one required to use an embouchure to play harmonica? And if so shouldn’t the music snobs be a little less smug about harmonica? And also if so, wouldn’t that put it back somewhere between organs and woodwinds? I know in the old days they did actually call it mouth organ but....
And another thing, embouchure was a word I had never seen, only heard. So all my life I had said it with an R, more like brochure, (if the C was an S). Then I read it the other day in Anthony Burgess’s autobiography. And I said to myself “Oh crap.” and “Duh” and “stupid, stupid girl” as all the millions of times I had mispronounced it went flashing in front of my eyes. This is my version of dying apparently, the embarrassment of unintentionally mangling the language.

Inquiring minds NEED to know

So if bass is a guitar and bass is a fish, what is that called when that happens? Is it a homonym retrograde or what?