Do the words hornswoggle, mollycoddle and whippersnapper make you giggle? They are among the 100 Funniest Words in English, according to one list. I am partial to No. 71: namby-pamby. I especially like how William Shatner sneers it in a Priceline commercial. Some words that aren't on that list but are suggested on a list at Inherently Funny: conniption, persnickety and poppycock. Do you have other suggestions?

AlphaDictionary also has a list of the 100 Most Beautiful Words in English. Loquacious, peccadillo and serendipity are on that list. Here is another list of beautiful words, and here is a list of 70 of the most beautiful words as determined by a survey. What do you think are the most beautiful words in English?

My earlier post about Sarah Palin's speech has received a good number of reads since I posted Sunday. I have another link for you. Slate has a piece that turns Palin's interview with Katie Couric into poetry.

Thanks to my colleague Judson Drennan for pointing this out.

We love slang, but some words need to be left in the bar or the coffee shop and not uttered from the lectern or the pulpit.

Here is a quiz to help you figure out which American accent you have. Mine is Southern.

I am fascinated by the language of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and by the comments on it in the news and entertainment media.

Today's quiz was inspired and aided by John Bremner's "Words on Words." The five sentences on the quiz involve word choices. Some sentences appeared in print; others were composed to illustrate the point.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin.

I happened across a copy of John B. Bremner's "Words on Words" on a bookshelf in The N&O's computer training center last week. It had been left behind in an editor's office. I was excited to find this copy in good shape. My own copy at home is a bit worn, and the book is out of print. Now I have an extra copy to keep on my desk at work and to share with my fellow copy editors. Subtitled "A Dictionary for Writers and Others Who Care about Words," the book was published in 1980, but it still serves us well when we need a solid reference on usage.If you ever have a chance to get a copy, you should.

Bremner was a teacher at the University of Kansas. He is a legend in copy editing circles for his teaching and his book. The William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at KU has a section on its Web site devoted to Bremner. Try his editing test here. You can read Bremner's obituary in the New York Times here.

A new book examines the words and terms that English has borrowed from other languages.

Speeches in this year's presidential campaign are awash in a rhetorical device called antimetabole, according to an article in Slate.

In this device, the speaker repeats words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order, as in President Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

I learned about the Slate piece in an "On the Media" segment, which linked to this definition. Slate cited a Wikipedia article about antimetabole, which explains the word's Greek origin. Follow the links above for more examples, and click here for a pronouncing guide.

The word "anonymize" came up in a radio interview, and that leads to a look into the formation of new words.