Default: 374755
Default with Spaces: 150046
NOTES: Mental Floss ran an article last week about popular Valentine’s Day Internet searches associated with each of the fifty states. The results provided some good word list additions such as couples yoga (80), the top-searched item for Colorado. I decided that the West Virginia entry cheap gifts (-) was a bit to green-painty. Word Spy recently posted a new slang term for hoarding: stuffocation (70). It’s a too-cute portmanteau but I mainly added it because it comes from a James Wallman book title. The astronomical discovery of a planet nine (72) from a few weeks ago finally got added. I hope that astronomers acquire stronger evidence of this solar system rogue very soon so we can have a new planet to name.
LISTS: I’m still working on a chuck of Mark Diehl entries and recently added Hilton Head (75), HTML editor (65), ostrich egg (75), and pencil-thin (65). One entry that three me for a second was loose teeth (63). I couldn’t grasp the meaning of the phrase until I thought of the singular form. While many *tooth phrases feel as natural as their *teeth counterparts, I find that a few lean one way or the other. It’s based on whether the dental phenomenon is associated with multiple instances in the same mouth, thus “buck teeth” is better than “buck tooth,” but “first tooth” is better than “first teeth.” So maybe “loose teeth” seems strange because people don’t have multiple loose teeth simultaneously (or so I assume based on my personal dental history).
life as a puzzle 
