One Sunday evening after church, we were invited over to the Grohs’ home to play games and eat ice cream. While the adults laughed over squeaky clean jokes in the dining room, Mike (one year older than I) and I and maybe others played the game Probe. (It’s a word game, people.) That was the night I learned the word “syzygy.” I think Mike was only in 8th or 9th grade to my 7th or 8th, but he was one brainy dude. I liked that word a lot, and tried to use it three times in a sentence (because once you did that, the word was yours permanently. I think I learned that from Reader’s Digest). However, even the definition of syzygy was kind of wordy and it didn’t stick.

So, remembering that distinctive word, I went on a little quest tonight to see what exotic word I might come up with. Back to phrontistery.info I went to peruse the list of unusual words that begin with the letter z. Peruse, peruse, scan, hmm, peruse, notice, peruse. Last word. zyzzyva.

I like spelling it. I like saying it. I love what it means (the definition that describes it as the final word in some dictionaries.)  And it’s also the name of a beautiful magazine about west coast artists and writers. It’s also a type of South American weevil, often destructive to plants (emphasis MINE).

Seeing as how this is the LAST entry in the 2015 A to Z blog challenge, I couldn’t resist this word.

ZYZZYVA Magazine‘s website looks to be an absolute treasure trove of interesting books, interviews with artists, events in the San Francisco area, and visually pleasing images.

Zyzzyva: The Last Word in Word Study is a program you can download to study Scrabble words, should you be so inclined.

And, that, dear readers, brings this year’s A to Z Blogging Challenge to a close. Thank you for joining me for this journey and please do continue to visit and comment.

Z

Y

Z

Z

Y

V

A

Zyzzyva.