Too Marvellous for Words

October 16 has been declared Dictionary Day, as it was on this date in 1758 that Noah Webster, America's first lexicographer, was born. Little Noah's first word was "pabulum," which, he went on to say to his astonished parents, "is a noun, related to the Latin panis, or bread, and defined as a solution of nutrients in a state suitable for absorption."

Webster's Dictionary, his masterwork, runs from aardvark ("a large burrowing nocturnal animal of sub-Saharan Africa") to zymosan ("an insoluble largely polysaccharide fraction of yeast cell walls").

There are, of course, many words now in use which were unknown to Noah, from cybernetics to sous vide, and for these, there is a guide called "Word Menu"--although, with the language changing and expanding so rapidly, it may be time for a new edition.

And then there are things that simply cannot be expressed. As Johnny Mercer wrote:

"You're just too much, and just too very very
To ever be in Webster's Dictionary."