Mark Twain once said: “An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I’ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half. … I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same money for cop.”

As English contains tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of words more than comprise other languages, we should be able to describe any object or act with extreme precision. Right? Not necessarily. While some words seem especially appropriate, others obfuscate or even mislead—which is one of the minor mysteries of life I intend to explore briefly today.

Yes, it’s possible to split hairs, parse phrases, and convolute, twist, and garble definitions to one’s advantage. But, like a rubber band that can be stretched only so far before it snaps, there’s a limit to how much you can distort the English language. Pass that point, even just a little bit, and nobody will believe you. Ever again. You want an example? Do you remember Bill Clinton’s definition of sexual relations?

Lewis Carroll played marvelous tricks with the English language, finding (like a portmanteau, as he pointed out in Through the Looking Glass) two meanings packed up into one word. President Clinton bested Carroll by finding a multiplicity of meanings for the two-letter word is.

But, I digress. For the moment, I want you to consider gargoyles—grotesque concrete or stone figures that sit perched near the roofs of many buildings. Sometimes a gargoyle serves as a waterspout. Sometimes it’s merely ornamental. Gargoyles are not installed very often these days, probably as an economy measure. That causes much chagrin for gargoyle fanciers. (No, chagrin isn’t what covers the face of a Cheshire cat.)

Check out older structures, particularly downtown-area multi-story office buildings constructed seventy or eighty years ago, and you'll spot the little monsters—ready to breathe life and swoop down on a moment’s notice when no one is looking to do who-knows-what kind of satanic mischief. Why are they called gargoyles? If you’d ever seen one, you wouldn’t have to ask. The word is absolutely perfect. What else would you call them?

(If you really want to know how gargoyles got their name, just google gargoyle etymology.)

Everything has a name. I’m reminded of the grasshopper that went into a bar. The bartender asked him, “Did you know that they’ve named a drink after you?”

“Really?” the grasshopper excitedly questioned. “They’ve named a drink Irving?”

Have you ever wondered what to call the harp-shaped brass tube positioned around the light bulb in a table lamp, the gizmo to which the lamp shade is attached? Yes, it’s a harp.

How about the pineapple-shaped object at the top of a fountain, the part the water spills out of when the fountain doesn’t feature a fish with an open mouth or a naked young boy? Right again. It’s a pineapple.

What is that denser, whiter squiggle of albumen in the whites of eggs called? You know, it looks like—well, I won’t actually describe what it looks like. You might have just eaten. Anyway, it’s a chalaza (pronounced as if the ch were a k). Do you know what it’s for? It keeps the yolk suspended near the center of the albumen. Now you know.

But then we come to some oddities. Go into a Jewish delicatessen—particularly in New York or Miami—and order an egg cream. Without hesitation, they’ll whip up a concoction made from chocolate syrup, milk, and seltzer. There’s absolutely no egg and no cream in the drink. Nu, why is it called an egg cream?

Are you wearing your eyeglasses while reading this? They’re probably not made from glass at all. Most glasses today have plastic lenses. So, to be technically correct, you should put on your reading plastics.

I certainly hope you refer to the professional who fitted your spectacles as an optometrist or optician, not an eye-doctor. If we called all physicians by the parts of the body they examine no one would ever become a proctologist and then some of us would be in a terrible fix.

If you’re an artist, at one time or another you’ve undoubtedly used a camel’s hair brush—which isn’t made from camel’s hair, but hair from the tail of a squirrel. Now, does that make any sense? Not one bit. Most squirrels agree with me.

Welsh rabbit doesn’t contain any kind of meat, not even squirrel. It’s made of melted cheese and, generally, ale or beer. The Welsh, who devised the recipe, were too poor to afford rabbit. The name is a joke reflecting that fact. Funny, huh? Well, maybe not. At today’s prices, the Welsh probably couldn’t afford to buy cheese, ale, or beer, either. Except for Tom Jones, of course.

Through faulty etymologizing, some people call the dish Welsh rarebit. Don’t. As I’ve just told you, that’s completely wrong.

Panama hats do not come from Panama. Genuine Panama hats are made in Ecuador. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know.

Another word that bugs me is ladybug. First of all, what would you call a male ladybug—a lordbug? Second, a ladybug is a beetle—and beetles are insects, not bugs. A ladybug is sometimes called a ladybird, the same term former president Lyndon Johnson used for his wife. No, ladybirds are not birds, either. They’re still insects. Or, first ladies.

Some things about the English language don’t make any sense at all. If you can be either discontented or contented, why is it that you can be disgruntled but not gruntled?

And, if your kid plays with matches, is something flammable likely to catch fire? What if it’s inflammable? The answer is yes, in either instance.

Sanction is a word often used in the legal community. Is it good or bad to be sanctioned? That depends. Sanction indicates approval. It’s also a penalty. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Desert with one s (Sahara, Mojave, etc.) is pronounced DEHZ-urt. Dessert with ss is pronounced deh-ZURT. The expression just deserts (meaning a deserved punishment or reward) is spelled with one s like the dry land abounding with sand and cacti, but pronounced as if it were the sweet dish served at the end of a meal. Go figger.

Some perfectly innocent words inherently sound obscene. Remember Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In? “Look THAT up in your Funk and Wagnall’s!” How about, “Hang THAT on your frigate futtocks!”

Sometimes the meaning of a word isn’t even close to the way it sounds. Take titman, for example. Go ahead, look it up.

Other words are deliciously obscure. Do demimondes engage in frottage? Do you? What about the lumpen?

The word abattoir, like boudoir, sounds sensual. But an abattoir is a slaughterhouse. Not the type of place you’d expect to find a demimonde.

The word fulsome is awfully deceiving. It sounds healthful and nutritious, as if it were somehow related to the word wholesome. Actually, fulsome means disgusting or excessively offensive.

Which brings me to the word gleet. Gleet sounds cheerful and happy. In fact, the word describes something so hideously repulsive that I won’t attempt to define it here. Take my word for it. Gleet is extremely fulsome. You wouldn’t want to be one to suppurate gleet.

Look those words up in a dictionary at your own risk. Just reading their meanings might make you nauseated. No, you never become nauseous, unless you, in turn, nauseate other people. Unfortunately, too many people confuse the two words and use them interchangeably. On the other hand, I have known some people who are quite nauseous.

If you’re nauseated, you may have to vomit. Or would you prefer to throw up? Barf? Puke? Heave? Upchuck? Retch? Regurgitate? As I pointed out, English has a nimiety of words, so that you can choose the one that exactly describes an object or action. My thesauruses (or is it thesauri?) provide eighteen synonyms for the word vomit, all equally fulsome.

Now, I’m going to step away from my computer and make a big pot of Welsh rabbit for dinner. That may sound fulsome, but it’s all I can afford.