#478 Squiggly

After yesterday’s essay, I received two replies, each using a word that partakes of the comic aspect I talked about with squat, squash, cramp and crampon. The two words were squiggly and noggin. I know they’re words because I scratch my noggin when I type them and a squiggly red line from my spellcheck doesn’t appear under them like it does when I type the word spellcheck. Interesting that the words spellcheck and cellphone get a squiggly line and the words noggin and squiggly don’t. Useful words that make sense have no official spelling and nonsense words that have simply survived generations of Websterization do. Because really, is squiggly and its root form squiggle anything more than some onomatopoeic representation of what it is? That curvy line? Let’s call it a squiggle. How many curve’s in a squiggle by the way? Its shorter counterpart, the much-maligned tilde, the punctuation, excuse me, diacritical mark you put over an “n” in Spanish, has only one curve on the bottom and one curve on the top. At what point does a tilde become a squiggle? Is a squiggle always made up of regular oscillations like the red and green squiggly lines in spellcheck and grammarcheck or can any random sort of repetitive, strung-together curves qualify? Do the curves have to be big or is it okay for them to be eentsy beentsy? And if they are eentsy beentsy, at what point do they become itsy bitsy? Was the spider in the notorious waterspout episode eentsy beentsy, itsy bitsy, or eentsy weentsy? Is there a difference in size or is it simply a regional variation? Can we determine a geographical dialect by ones use of itsy bitsy, eentsy weentsy, or eentsy beentsy? It makes one scratch one’s noggin. And in the scratch of the itch makes one wonder how it was that “noggin” made it into adult language circles. To me, noggin is always a word that conjures up lavender-scented grannies and terms like punkin-head. Oh look…His itsy bitsy noggin has a squiggly wittle cowlick. Does him want a yummy for his tummy?
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