In May 2015 I published an e-book called The Wondrous Wacky World of Words. I wrote the words and Jenny, my cousin David’s wife, created some beautiful cartoon-like illustrations based on my alter ego Molly Wordmaid and her rakish companion, Mike Maroo. The book was published in various e-book formats on Smashwords and also in Amazon’s Kindle store. Here’s the summary of the book.

How are you on words? Do you know your oxymorons from your tautologies; your alliterations from your euphemisms; your acronyms from your homonyms; or your onomatopoeias from your palindromes? Is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious a nonce word or a nonsense word? Can you create neologisms by prefixing, suffixing, back-forming, compounding, and blending with the best of them? Can you define the word word without using the word word? Do you know what it means to munch a brick or bend someone’s ear? Is a fire distinguisher a spoonerism or a malapropism? Are you a logophile, an etymologist, a lexicologist, a philologist, a logologist, a linguist or just someone who enjoys a walk in the park?

If you know the answers to all these questions, you’ve no need to read this book. If not, read on and be amused, amazed and ameliorated.

Mike and Molly discuss the changing meanings of words

I have now published a paperback version of the book using Amazon’s CreateSpace service. The printed version has turned out really well in my opinion, especially the illustrations. The colours are truly vivid. If you would like to buy a copy, go to Amazon’s UK or USA Book store and search using the title. The price of the paperback is £7.69/$11.00 plus P&P compared with the e-book version at £4.20/$6.06.

As Molly might say, “Enrich your vocabulary, astound your neighbours, and savour the lexicological contents.”

(^_^)