What an unusual word jackanapes is! It is an archaic word which has been steadily declining in usage, though it has had a recent surge in popularity, possibly due to George R. R. Martin's use of the word in his very popular Game of Thrones.

But what does this word mean? Where did it come from?

The meaning is easy--much easier than the word origin question! A "jackanapes" is an impertinent or impudent person. Thus the Martin quote: "By his extreme youth, he can only be a prancing jackanapes, and so I name him."

If you want a mental picture to go with the word, picture a monkey on a leash used by an organ grinder. Full of mischief, and hard to control.

But where did this word come from? That's a great question--thank you for asking! There seems to be a variety of theories about where the word came from, as listed below. Before we begin, though, keep in mind that the name Jack is the diminutive for the very popular name John, and is widely used in fairy tales and nursery rhymes (Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Jack Horner, etc.). Jack became the equivalent of the "everyman." Think about the fact that the "Jack" in a deck of playing cards was once called the "knave."

• Originally, a mischievous person might be referred to as "Jack of the Apes," which got truncated to "Jacken Apes," and eventually "jackanapes."
• One such mischievous person lived in Naples, and was referred to as "Jack of Naples," or "Jack a Napes."
• Naples had (for some obscure reason) an association with monkeys, so calling someone "Jack of Naples" was equivalent to calling them "Jack of the Monkeys."
• William de la Pole, who was generally disliked, had a collar and leash on his coat of arms (here we go, back to the monkey-on-a-leash image!) so people called him "Jack of the Apes" or "Jack of Naples."

Incidentally, William de la Pole, who is generally considered to be the "original" jackanapes, was banished and then beheaded, so if you were thinking of leading a life of jackanapery (yes, that really is a word!), you might want to reconsider...

A couple months ago we wrote about the word pabulum which, on the surface, appears to have a straightfoward meaning, but has an ironic barbed point under the surface. This month's word, "leguleian," is very similar.

Take a quick stab at the general meaning of this word, based on the first two syllables. Did you guess that it has something to do with the legal system? If you did, you were right on the money.

Leguleian is a fancy word for someone who behaves in a "lawyerly fashion," or "like a lawyer."

That's all fine, but you might wonder . . . how does a lawyer behave? What exactly is the under-the-surface meaning of this fancy word?

To learn the answer to that question, we have to look at a word that is often listed as a synonym of leguleian: pettifogger.

Pettifogger is another fun word, and its meaning can also be partially deduced from the first two syllables. A pettifogger is an inferior-quality lawyer who takes on petty cases and uses ethically dubious methods to win. In other words, a shyster.

Thus, leguleian can be used in a couple different ways. It can be used unironically to state that someone is a lawyer, and behaving like a lawyer, or it can be used in a more insulting way to indicate that a lawyer is actually a crook.

Pay close attention to the context to determine the actual meaning!

The word nostomania is not a hard word to figure out; if you don't know what it means, study the word for a moment, and see if you can suss out its meaning.

Here's a hint: split the word between the "o" and the "m."

The second half, "mania," is easy to figure out; "mania" is a form of mental illness marked by excessive excitement, euphoria, or activity.

To figure out the first half, ask yourself what words you know that begin with the syllable "nost." If you thought "Nostradamus," you picked the wrong one. "Nostalgia" is the word you're looking for. Nostalgia is a longing for a time or place which has happy associations.  

Put those two things together, and you have excessive longing over a time or place with happy associations.  

Now we just need  to tweak the definition a bit; "nostomania" is all about a place with happy associations: home.

So "nostomania" is an excessive longing to return home. Or, to put it another way, it is extreme homesickness.

Example: Even though the camp had many fun activities, nostomania kept Joey from enjoying any of them.

Pabulum and its synonym pablum are unusual words which have vastly different (and potentially contradictory) meanings, depending on the context.

Pabulum is a Latin word which means "foodstuff." Pablum is an abbreviated form of the word, which is the trademarked name for a type of baby food.

So if you see "Pablum" instead of "pabulum," there's a good chance it may be referring to this particular type of baby food.

So how is the word "pabulum" used? Well, if you consult a medical dictionary, you will find that it refers to a type of food which can be eaten with very little effort--a suspension of nutrients in a liquid.

Hmm...sounds a bit like baby food.

Outside the medical world, pabulum can have the meaning "intellectual nourishment," and this is where the definitions can get contradictory.

Technically, pabulum is a good thing; intellectual nourishment is a very positive thing. But the word has taken an interesting spin over time; since pabulum is food designed to be taken passively rather than actively, the usage of the word has eventually come to mean "infantile intellectual nourishment." In other words, not very intellectual at all!

Most usages of the word "pabulum" today have taken on this tongue-in-cheek, ironic meaning. If someone says, "Most of the news programs on television are pabulum," they are not saying that the news provides intellectual nourishment; they are saying it is bland and infantile, and provides little to no intellectual nourishment.

It reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said in the book of I Corinthians: "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able." (I Corinthians 3:2). Basically Paul is saying, "I'm stuck feeding you pabulum, because you're not ready for anything more profound."

Some words are just plain fun to say. Boondoggle is one of those. But what is a boondoggle?

A boondoggle is a project that is considered to be a waste of time, but is continued anyway. Sometimes, boondoggles are government projects which can't be given up without making a committee or politician look bad. In other situations a boondoggle might be a corporate project that some employees believe will never work, but people higher up the corporate ladder are unwilling to give up.

Originally, the term boondoggle was the name for a type of craft involving braided plastic thread. The term took on a new meaning in the days of the United States' New Deal, when the US government was working to provide jobs and activities for unemployed citizens, but some of those activities seemed to be pointless. The New York Times reported that over $3 million had been spent training citizens to make boondoggles, and suddenly, the word took on a whole new meaning!

The word boondoggle isn't used as much today as it was in the 1930s, but when it is used, it is often used by the political left to refer to spending by the right, or vice versa.

Oh! And one more thing: you can use boondoggle as a verb if you want to. To boondoggle means to waste your time or money on a useless project.