Language & Logic

Words are humanity's greatest invention. These questions are what happens when words are left unsupervised.

81. If I look up "dictionary" in the dictionary, will it get self-conscious?

Slightly. It's like hearing your own voice on a recording: the dictionary reads its own definition and thinks, "Is that how I sound?" Be gentle. It has to define everyone else all day. Imagine spending your whole life explaining what "hippopotamus" means and then being asked to describe yourself. Most dictionaries handle it with dignity. The pocket dictionary, however, gets defensive and says "I'm compact, not small." The thesaurus is worse: it reads its own entry and immediately starts calling itself a "lexicon," "glossary" and "word hoard," because it can never just pick one.

82. Who spellchecks the dictionary?

A second, meaner dictionary, which is checked by a third. At the very top sits one ancient dictionary that has never made a mistake. Occasionally it misspells something on purpose, just to see if anyone's paying attention. This ancient dictionary is kept in a vault in a secret location, guarded by retired spelling bee champions who still spell out words while they sleep. It is consulted only in emergencies, like whether "irregardless" is a real word. (It is in many dictionaries now. The ancient dictionary is still upset about it.) Marjorie has seen the vault once. She doesn't talk about it.

83. Why does "short" have more letters than "long"?

Because language loves chaos. "Short" has five letters, "long" has four, and "big" has fewer than "small." Meanwhile, "monosyllabic" has five syllables, which is a prank older than all of us. "Abbreviation" is a very long word, "lisp" is hard to say with a lisp, and "phonetic" isn't spelled phonetically. Linguists believe English was assembled by committee, after lunch, by people who had all eaten too much cheese. The words don't care. They've been making fun of us for centuries and the only revenge we have is putting them in crossword puzzles, where they're forced to fit in tiny boxes.

84. Does "unthawed" mean frozen or melted, and who's in

charge here?

Nobody is in charge; that's the problem. Logically "unthawed" means still frozen, but plenty of people use it to mean melted, so now it means both. The dictionary would weigh in, but it's still self-conscious from question 81. "Inflammable" and "flammable" also mean the same thing, which nobody planned. "Overlook" and "oversee" mean opposite things. "Cleave" means both to stick together and to split apart. English is a house where every room has a door leading to the same closet. If you're unsure whether your chicken is unthawed, poke it. That's the only reliable dictionary in the kitchen.

85. Does orange feel left out that nothing rhymes with it?

A little. But orange gets to be both a colour and a fruit, which is more than most words get, and it's accepted the trade. Also, "door hinge" works if you say it fast and believe in yourself. Purple and silver are in the same support group, along with "month," which also rhymes with nothing and is very tired of being asked. Poets have avoided orange for centuries, writing about roses, lemons and the moon instead. Orange doesn't mind. It got its own juice, its own soda and a whole season, autumn, when everything turns its colour. That's not left out. That's winning.

86. Can you un-ring a doorbell?

No. Once a doorbell is rung, the sound is out there and can't be taken back. The only option is to run, which is how ding-dong-ditch was invented. Physicists say the sound of a doorbell travels at about 343 metres per second, which is far faster than you can sprint, so the person inside always hears it. You could try to un-ring it by yelling "never mind!" through the mail slot, but by then the dog is barking and someone is putting on pants. Modern video doorbells have made this worse: they record you ringing, panicking and attempting to un-ring, and that clip ends up on the neighbourhood group chat.

87. Is "fourth" the fourth word for four?

Let's count: "four," "quad," "quartet," "fourth." Yes. Fourth is the fourth. This is the only answer in the book that checks out perfectly, and we're as surprised as you are. We had a mathematician double-check it, and she cried a little. We then tried it with "third" and got "three," "trio," "third," which makes third the third word for three. The universe is in alignment. Then we tried "fifth" and the whole system collapsed because nobody could agree on whether "quintet" or "pentagon" came first. We have decided to stop while we're ahead, which is the fourth-smartest thing we've done.

88. How do you spell "spell," and is that a spell?

S-P-E-L-L. And yes, spelling "spell" technically casts a tiny spell. It does nothing except make everyone within earshot feel like they're in a spelling bee. Their palms get sweaty, they sit up straight and they suddenly remember a word they misspelled in grade four. Spell it three times in a mirror and you summon an English teacher, who will ask you to use it in a sentence. Spell it backward, "L-L-E-P-S," and nothing happens, which is a relief. Wizards have been very annoyed about this coincidence for centuries, since every time they cast a real spell, someone asks them how to spell it.

89. If I write "do not read this" on a note, did I ruin it for myself?

Yes. You've read it. You've read it again just now. Your only option is a second note that says "do not read the other note," which is how filing cabinets were invented. Once you write the second note, you'll need a third that says "seriously, stop," then a folder, then a drawer, then a locked office, then a government agency called the Department of Notes You Shouldn't Have Read. The agency is very busy. Its own notes say "do not read," and staff read them anyway, all day long. That's how bureaucracy works. You started it. Congratulations.

90. Which came first, the period or the end of the sentence

The end of the sentence came first, and the period showed up late, like a friend who says "sorry I'm late" as everyone is leaving. Ancient writers didn't use much punctuation at all, so whole pages ran together like one long breathless story about a goat. Then someone invented a dot to say "stop, breathe, maybe have a snack." The period was so popular it got a promotion and now ends almost everything. Commas got jealous, semicolons got confused and exclamation points got loud. In question 90, the period never showed up at all. We're still waiting