Last Word in the Dictionary

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning, this is Steve Barrett in San Diego.

Hello, Steve, welcome.

Hi, Steve.

Greetings.

I’ve had a fascination always with the last word in the dictionary.

Oh-ho.

Since I was very young, and I’ve discovered that in every dictionary I’ve checked, it was always different.

-huh.

Were you checking Spanish and Dutch and Russian or something?

No, no, no, I was just checking English dictionaries.

-huh.

Going all the way back to a dictionary my grandmother had, an 1844 pocket dictionary.

Oh, nice.

So what’s the last word of that dictionary?

What did you find?

The last word in this dictionary is zootomy.

Zootomy?

Yeah.

So this is a zootomy.

This is like when you cut the zoo out of the picture?

What is that?

According to this dictionary, it’s a dissection of the bodies of brute beasts.

Okay, zootomy, sure.

Of brute beasts.

Oh, this is a surgery on professional wrestlers.

It sounds like it should be in a limerick.

Yeah.

Okay, so the question is, so you’re checking all these dictionaries, looking at the last word.

It’s a bit of an obsession for you, it sounds like, right?

Yeah, a bit, yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, and so what other final words have you come across?

Well, the one that I have found that I have not been able to beat was in my dad’s Winston collegiate dictionary from 1945.

Okay.

And that word was Zythum, Z-Y-T-H-U-M.

And what is that?

That is an ancient Egyptian malt liquor.

Nice.

The Egyptians sitting on the stoop with the 40.

That’s fantastic.

A little pop top.

And then there’s Zytham light.

Okay.

But you know what?

I can beat that.

You can.

I can.

Okay.

I can beat it.

I have four other words that are alphabetically after that, after Zytham.

Zythum is Z-Y-T-H-U-M, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Wow, you ready for this, Steve?

I’m ready.

I’ve got my pencil out.

Okay.

And the whole problem with this exercise, let’s just say this now, is that we’re not talking about common words, okay?

We’re just talking about any word that anyone ever anywhere has accepted as English of any kind.

Hey, I buy Zythum all the time.

What are you talking about?

That’s a brand name just waiting to be taken, right?

Right next to the eight ball, right?

Okay.

What are your big four, Grant?

Here we go.

I’m not sure how to say these, but I’m going to try them.

This one, I believe, is Zyxoma.

Z-Y-X-O-M-M-A.

And it’s a type of Indian dragonfly.

Okay.

Where did you find that?

It comes from Greek.

It’s in the Century Dictionary and a couple other dictionaries.

Okay.

Okay, here’s the next one for you, Steve.

Okay.

Z-Y-X-T.

Zyxt.

And this is an obsolete Kentish word.

This Kentish is a dialect of the language spoken in the British Isles.

It’s the second person singular indicative present of the verb to see, S-E-E.

Gesundheit.

And for a long time, it was the last word in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Right, but it’s not in the online version.

Why did they take it out?

Well, it’s one of those words I believe is a pass-along word.

It was collected once, I think, in Northumberland in a glossary.

And so all the dictionaries of the era, since they just rip each other off, took it and added it to their own dictionaries.

And in that way, it was propagated.

And I think once you start to look at the word, you start to realize that it really doesn’t deserve to have a place in an English dictionary.

Oh, yeah.

But in any case, it is in some of them.

Here you go.

Two more.

Z-Y-Z-Z-Y-V-A.

Ziziva.

Ziziva.

And this is a type of tropical American weevil.

And it’s a genus name as well for those types of weevils.

And they destroy plants and the like.

So Ziziva.

Z-Y-Z-Z-Y-V-A.

And I believe this is the last one in the American Heritage Dictionary.

I think it is, and I think it’s probably onomatopoetic, right?

Zzva, little weevil.

I love the word.

That is a great word.

And actually, I believe there’s a literary journal of that name just because it’s such a fantastic word and also because it tends to be last in the dictionary.

Okay, you got that one, Steve?

I got that one.

And there’s one more, huh?

This is the one which causes the most dispute.

Is this the Random House word?

I don’t know.

It’s in Encarta.

It’s in Cambridge.

It’s in Webster’s New World.

Okay, drumroll.

Z-Z-Z.

It’s the Automatopoeia style for sleep.

Oh.

I’ll be darned.

That’s cheating.

And you’ll see, there we go.

It causes dispute.

The thing is, do you allow it?

And yet I can read books that use it.

I see it in comic strips and cartoons.

Yeah.

I mean, I see it in speech bubbles in a variety of different places.

It’s in songs even.

Yeah.

What do you think, Steve?

Do you think we should allow that one?

We can say it.

We can say it.

We can write it, and it has meaning.

It’s a word.

Steve, what do you think?

Unless you use the blank tiles, it’ll never fit into Scrabble.

Good point.

I’m not sure it’s allowed by the Scrabble dictionary, but I’m sure there’s some Scrabble experts going, actually, I used that in part of my winning game last week.

Doggone.

Well, I’ll be darned. There’s four more.

See what you’ve done, Steve.

Steve, thank you so much for calling. This was fun.

Thank you for having me on.

Our pleasure.

Have a great day. Bye.

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