As a child, I was a massive Roald Dahl fan and have spent hours with my nose in his books. Dahl has such an interesting way of writing that if a child has started reading one of his books, then there’s no coming back. With his colourful characters and spellbinding stories he instantly turns the reader into his fan.
But back then in my childhood, I didn’t know that apart from creating wonderful plots, he has also created various words. And they are not a few words but hundreds.
Dr. Susan Rennie who is a writer, researcher and lexicographer, has listed the words distinct to Dahl’s books in Roald Dahl Dictionary, whether they’re familiar terms imbued with new meaning or entirely made-up phrases. The interesting dictionary has words grouped according to different themes, and has citations from Roald Dahl’s books, making the reader aware that from where the word actually comes and what does that mean. The book is a perfect step to gift a child a brilliant vocabulary which can enhance the writing process infusing imagination in it.
Today, TSA has brought you 10 words from the book which Dahl has introduced to all of us.
“’You must not be giving up so easy,’ the BFG said calmly. ‘The first titchy bobsticle you meet and you begin shouting you is biffsquiggled.’” –The BFG
“The fact that it was none other than Boggis’s chickens they were going to eat made them churgle with laughter every time they thought of it.” –Fantastic Mr. Fox
“’So now!’ barked the Grand High Witch. ‘So now I am having a plan! I am having a giganticus plan for getting rrrid of every single child in the whole of Inkland!’” –The Witches
‘It’s gloriumptious.’” –The BFG
“I’ll bet if you saw a fat juicy little child paddling in the water over there at this very moment, you’d gulp him up in one gollup!” –The Enourmous Crocodile
“You is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans, right or left?” –The BFG
“I must say it’s quite an experience,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s a razztwizzler,’ the BFG said. ‘It’s gloriumptious.’” –The BFG
“‘I is reading it hundreds of times,’ the BFG said. ‘And I is still reading it and teaching new words to myself and how to write them. It is the most scrumdiddlyumptious story.’ – The BFG
“Your granddad,” he said, “my own dad, was a magnificent and splendiferous poacher. It was he who taught me all about it.” – Danny, the Champion of the World
“’If you do go back, you will be telling the world,’ said the BFG, ‘most likely on the telly-telly bunkum box and the radio squeaker.’” –The BFG
Also Read:
Celebrating Roald Dahl’s 104th Birth Anniversary: The Man With The Sweet Tooth That Never Grew Up