Lyrics That Send You to the Dictionary

by Benham Jones | 10/16/2024 | 5:00am

Noah Webster, 1823, Samuel Morse

It's National Dictionary Day commemorating the birthday of lexicographer Noah Webster. Has a word in a lyric ever had you searching your brain or the dictionary for its meaning?

Here's what we spun just after 9am:

  • Isaac Hayes - "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" (vocab includes: modus operandi, phalanges, stupensity, asphyxiation, emancipator, cerebellum, medulla oblongata)
  • The Decemberists - "June Hymn" (thrushes, panoply, barony)
  • Steely Dan - "Bodhisattva" (bodhisattva)
  • Andrew Bird - "Sisyphus" (precipice, recalcitrant, taciturn)
  • Julie Andrews & Dick Van Dyke - "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (precocious, atrocious)

Additional audio sampled from:

  • Lance Crutthers as Pootie Tang, in conversation with Bob Costas - Pootie Tang (2001)
  • "Hooked on Phonics" television commercial (1989)
Category: #Question of the Day
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Supported by The Public Theater, presenting 'GLASS. KILL. WHAT IF IF ONLY. IMP' from playwright Caryl Churchill.

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