Todays Wonder Word and Other News

WALLYDRAIGLE

OMG, I am in love with this word.  Must be my Scottish roots popping up – they do that every once in a while and some silly Scotlandish thing will make me smile.

wallydraigle (a former word of the day on wordnik) (noun) The youngest of a family; a bird in the nest; hence, any feeble, ill-grown creature.

‘Wallydraigle’ is Scottish in origin, and comes from ‘wally,’ a term of endearment, plus ‘dragle,’ to drag or draw along on damp ground or mud, or on wet grass.

Here’s the picture it puts in my head.

In a long, pale yellow nightgown, a waif of a child with wispy fine hair tightly clutches her rag dolls arm in her tiny fist. The rest of the doll flops across the hard floor, bumping off a chair leg here and a shelf corner there,  resigned to the constant dragging and strangely happy with its fate.  Better to be the misused plaything of this sweet wallydraigle than to languish in some dark abandoned toy box, forgotten and alone.

The word can also be shortened to wallydrag (a feeble, dwarfed, animal or person.)  Sounds so much better than ‘runt of the litter’, doesn’t it?

In other exciting news – Canada has won an Olympic bronze medal in women’s three metre synchronized diving.  We never have big expectations for high medal counts in the summer games.  Have you seen our summers?  Our official medal count is now at one.  We will joyfully celebrate all of our athletes in their endeavours, whatever the outcome.

It is also day four of dog sitting for me.  We’re doing well, and this is the reason why.

Both of us are in perfect synchronized agreement as to the proper method of spending a day off.