What is that little metal thingamajig on the top of a champagne bottle called? You know, that wire whatchamacallit that holds the cork on the bottle.
It's funny, I never even thought about that thing having a name, but, of course, it does. I found out when I opened my stocking on Christmas morning and pulled out a Word-of-the-Day desk calendar.
Jan. 1: agrafe (noun) [uh-grahf]: A fastening composed of a metal hook and loop. "Christine undid the agrafe and popped the Champagne bottle to ring in the new year.
It sounds kind of French— which, of course, it is. It is derived from the verb agrafer, which means "to seize with a grappling hook" or "attach with a clasp."
I was quite pleased with Santa Claus for the thoughtful present. Obviously, as a professional writer and editor for a quarter of a century, it is apropos. I like to think I have a pretty extensive vocabulary, but English is a vast language and I love learning new words.
Oxford, generally considered the authoritative source of information on English, contains 600,000 word-forms, including 171,476 words in current use, 47,156 obsolete words, and 157,000 combinations and derivatives.
Other authorities (for example, Merriam-Webster) estimate there are probably over a million English words, including slang, inflected forms etc., but it all depends on how you count them.
Suffice it to say the English lexicon is vast.
It's also complicated.
For example, the word run, alone, has 645 meanings.
It's a wonder we can talk to each other at all.
More than 171,000 words seems like a bit of overkill considering the University of Cape Town English Language Centre suggests someone learning the language only needs between 1,000 and 2,000 words to be conversational and around 8,000 for advanced communication.
To read at a university level, you need approximately 10,000 to 20,000 word families. A word family is a root word and all its inflections (decide, decides, decided, decision, decisive etc.).
It is estimated an average adult native English speaker knows 20,000 to 35,000 words.
You'd think that would be enough, but I'm looking forward to my 365 days of words. In the first week alone, I learned two new ones, the aforementioned agrafe and treen.
Treen refers to small, functional, household objects made from wood such as picture frames, wooden spoons and the like.
Not a word one would might need for basic conversation, perhaps, but you can bet I'm going to try to slip it in one of these days.