Number of years of formal education required to understand selected magazines, according to the Gunning-Fog readability index:

• Atlantic Monthly: 12
• TIME, Harper’s: 11
• Newsweek: 10
• Reader’s Digest: 9
• Ladies’ Home Journal: 8
• True Confessions: 7
• comic books: 6

tomomania
n. irrational predilection for performing surgery

A pangram is a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet:

• John P. Brady, give me a black walnut box of quite a small size. (48 letters)
• Quixotic knights’ wives are found on jumpy old zebras. (44)
• By Jove, my quick study of lexicography won a prize. (41)
• Sympathizing would fix Quaker objectives. (36)
• Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31)
• Foxy nymphs grab quick-jived waltz. (29)
• Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox. (27)

The 26-letter ones are nearly incomprehensible:

• Nth black fjords vex Qum gyp wiz.

Or “An esteemed Iranian shyster was provoked when he himself was cheated: an alleged seaside ski resort he purchased proved instead to be a glacier of countless oil-abundant fjords.”

petrichor
n. pleasant smell accompanying the first rain after a dry spell

A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a ward, a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall, a hat, a fag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top, a tonk, a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer, a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian, a room, a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool, a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu, a fan, a pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a yaw, a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a wad, an alias, an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress, a pass, a baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a sap, a zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat, a catnip, a pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal — Panama!

— A 544-word palindrome composed in 1984 by Dan Hoey (with computer assistance)

The Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) was famously reputed to swap consonants in his speech (“The weight of rages will press hard upon the employer”).

His legend has grown so popular that today it’s hard to known which “spoonerisms” really happened. For instance, Spooner might really have asked, “Is the bean dizzy?”, but he almost certainly never said, “You have hissed all my mystery lectures and were caught fighting a liar in the quad. Having tasted two worms, you will leave by the next town drain.”

But we can be fairly certain that when he proposed a toast to “The Boar’s Head” (a pub), it was not a spoonerism.

He was a priest, after all.

Teller, of the magician duo Penn and Teller, has no first or middle name. His parents named him Raymond Joseph Teller, but he had the given names legally removed. On government documents his first name is listed as NFN, meaning “no first name.”