Hijinks is the only common English word with three dotted letters in a row. Among proper nouns, Beijing and Fiji are better known than Australia’s Lake Mijijie, but all three lose out to the Katujjijiit Development Corporation, a property development concern in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

Can we beat this? A reader tells me that pääjääjiiri is Finnish for “main ice mitre,” and possessiveness contains 18 consecutive dots in Morse code.

But the all-time winner must remain H.L. Mencken, who in 1938 ridiculed the New Deal by filling six columns of the Baltimore Evening Sun with 1 million dots — to represent “the Federal Government’s immense corps of job-holders.”

ascob
n. a cocker spaniel of “any solid color other than black”

lasslorn
adj. forsaken by a lass

kalopsia
n. the delusion that things are more beautiful than they are

A French versifier, equally deficient in poetic fire and worldly pelf, and whose nether garments were rather out of order, had commenced a series of epics on scriptural subjects. One was on the subject of Lot, and commenced,

L’amour a vaincu Loth.

On reading this aloud, his friend feigning to understand it thus,

L’amour a vingt culottes,

with a significant glance at his breeches, asked him why he did not borrow a pair. Can your critical French readers explain any difference in the sound of the two lines?

— The Kaleidoscope, Jan. 22, 1822

levament
n. “the comfort which one hath of his wife”

(Henry Cockeram, The English Dictionarie, 1623)

babery
n. finery to please a baby

scarebabe
n. a thing that frightens a baby

A Frenchman, while looking at a number of vessels, exclaimed, ‘See what a flock of ships!’ He was told that a flock of ships was called a fleet, but that a fleet of sheep was called a flock. To assist him in mastering the intricacies of the English language, he was told that a flock of girls was called a bevy, that a bevy of wolves is called a pack, but that a pack of cards is never called a bevy, though a pack of thieves is called a gang, and a gang of angels is called a host, while a host of porpoises is termed a shoal. He was told that a host of oxen is termed a herd, and a herd of children is called a troop, and a troop of partridges is termed a covey, and a covey of beauty is called a galaxy, and a galaxy of ruffians is called a horde, and a horde of rubbish is called a heap, and a heap of bullocks is called a drove, and a drove of blackguards is called a mob, and a mob of whales is called a school, and a school of worship is called a congregation, and a congregation of engineers is called a corps, and a corps of robbers is called a band, and a band of locusts is called a crowd, and a crowd of gentlefolks is called the elite. The last word being French, the scholar understood it and asked no more.

— Charles William Bardeen, A System of Rhetoric, 1884