IT'S PAINFUL TRUTH: HUMOROUS IS AS HUMERUS DOES

A recent headline in this newspaper prompted a phone call from a reader who had lived on a farm most of her life. The lady felt "tow" should have been spelled "toe."

Farm jargon being unfamiliar to me, I sought to satisfy her with dictionary definitions. Briefly, to "toe the line" is to conscientiously conform; "in tow" means under one's say or control. The newspaper story was about a project that was under way, so the use of tow in the headline was appropriate.

Still, my caller, who wouldn't identify herself, may know a non-dictionary term peculiar to farming, and I'd intended to inquire of my Gordonville cousins next time we met. Alas, bungee erased the question from my mind. The John Lorbergs were about to take their daughter Sarah and her friend Erica to Florida, and for the girls, bungee jumping was to be the high point of the trip. The state of Florida had just outlawed this dangerous sport, and the girls seemed inconsolable. Sarah's Uncle Jerry offered to arrange for them to jump off his barn roof as soon as he could locate a rubber band strong enough to ensure their bouncing back, but Sarah and Erica were not amused.

I was relieved if not amused, because I had written against bungee jumping before finding bungee in print and wasn't sure of the spelling. The word was not in my dictionaries, and for my part it can vanish along with the sport. But at age 15 or 16 I might have felt differently.

Anyone out there care about the distinction between cupola and copula? I learned it years ago because a distant friend, upon receipt of a picture of the family funeral home (with my attic hideaway circled), responded with: "Book me in yon cupulo." A domed structure surmounting a roof is called a cupola, and my friend's spelling (probably a typo) drove me to the dictionary in case I had it wrong.

Copulas are linking verbs such as feeling or being that identify a subject with the predicate. James Kilpatrick used it recently with regard to feeling bad and badly, but I can't recall having seen the word anywhere else in 30 years.

The term littoral, pronounced the same as literal, gave me a turn some time back because I didn't know this was another word for shore or coastal region. Littoral was used in connection with Split, a city on the coast of Albania. My European travelmate and I cited a freighter labeled SPLIT near the coast as we sailed from Greece to Italy, but we had no idea how it came by the name. Neither of us knew there was a city called Split. Now, more than 20 years later, I know Split can be both littoral and literal. This should comfort slow learners.

A much-needed explication regarding biannual and biennial appears in Harry Shaw's excellent Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions. Biannual means twice a year, but is often confused with biennial, meaning once in two years. This column, by the way, appears biweekly, meaning every other week, not twice a week.

Everyone knows what a faker is one who pretends to be something he isn't but few of us have met a fakir. Pronounced FaKEER, a fakir is a Muslim or religious person who usually devotes his life to self-denial or contemplation. We might deduce that fakers and fakirs espouse opposite causes. Fakirs choose religion; fakers join marches instead of staying home and doing what they tell everyone else to do.

The word scan has opposite meanings with the same spelling, and when used to denote reading or writing qualifies as a contranym. To scan may mean either to examine carefully, or to inspect in haste, and the meaning becomes clear only when taken in context.

Forbear and forebear are bafflers because forbear is an alternate spelling of forebear. However, learned writers use forbear as a verb meaning to tolerate, desist, or be merciful; forebear as a noun, to relate to an ancestor. A tactful teacher may forbear to tell a parent that his child cannot be promoted. Geneologists seek to discover who their forebears were.

Most of us know Richard Lederer as a word-specialist and co-median because of the oft-reprinted gems from his book "Crazy English." In a more recent book, "The Miracle of Language", the author describes English as "one of the most playful languages that has ever cavorted across the planetary stage." He then proceeds to cavort with homophones "born in the playground of punnery," with special attention to humorous and humerus humerus being the proper term for what we call the funnybone.

All of us know how our funnybone stings and smarts if we bump it against something resistant, so who could resist the pun? I can think of no other circumstance that enables me to find humor in pain, but I'm forced to grant humorous is as humerus does.