Thread by @HaggardHawks

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @HaggardHawks! 🎂

6 years ago today, HH fluttered into life here on Twitter. Since then, we’ve shared something like 40,000 extraordinary words, from AASVOGEL to ZENZIZENZIZENZIC.

But sometimes, we come across a word that’s too bizarre even for HH…

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One question that pops up here more than any other is whether the words HH posts are real. Yes, they really are.

But some words are so bizarre and so eyebrow-raising that if we were just to post them on here, absolutely nobody would believe they were genuine.

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So. Here’s a thread of 12 of the weirdest, most ridiculous, most baffling words we’ve ever found. And, yes, these all come from genuine English dictionaries.

Oh, and 🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨 – some of these are, er, pretty crude. You have been warned...

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CROTCH-TROLLING

It’s all to do with fishing for pike, apparently.

(A General Dictionary of Provincialisms, 1840) [4/16]

GRANDISSIMUS

Herman Melville thought the English language so desperately needed a specific word for a whale’s penis, he made this one up.

(OED) [5/16]

BA’MONEY

Because nothing says Happy Wedding Day like pooling all your spare change, abandoning the ceremony, and going to buy a football.

(An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1887) [6/16]

COBBLE-DICK-LONGER-SKIN

The least appetizing name for a type of apple imaginable.

(A Cornish-English Vocabulary, 1836) [7/16]

TEATY-WAD

What’s a teaty-wad? It’s the same as a sugar-teat. What’s a sugar teat? It’s a nipple-shaped linen pouch filled with sugar for a baby to suck on.

(A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1847) [8/16]

CHITTERIE-CHATTERIE

You may never need a word for a piece of bread eaten immediately after taking a bath, but have this one anyway.

(A Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911) [9/16]

THOROUGH-COUGH

Because nothing is more ‘thorough’ than coughing and farting at the same time.

(A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785) [10/16]

TADAGO PIE

If you thought that stargazy pie was the weirdest food Cornwall has to offer, think again.

(A Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, 1857) [11/16]

CUM-TWANG

A term of abuse. Couldn’t really be much else.

(A Supplementary English Glossary, 1881) [12/16]

HIPPURIS

A ‘debility and weeping of the genitals’ caused by too much horse riding.

(The Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1808) [13/16]

SPUNK-WATER

The rainwater that gathers in tree stumps? That’s spunk-water.

(A Dictionary of American Regionalisms, 2000) [14/16]

CHRISTMAS HOLD

And finally, seeing as it is nearly Christmas, a suitably festive term from wrestling for a handful of nuts.

(Slang and Unconventional English, 2006) [15/16]

Congratulations if you made it this far!

And if you’ve made it through the past 6 years and 40,000 @HaggardHawks tweets, a huge thank you—HH would not exist to, er, share words like these without you.

Now. Who’s for a quick bit of crotch-trolling?

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