In my professional opinion, the Oxford English Dictionary is more fun than a box of monkeys.

That variation of the familiar barrel of monkeys cliché is in the OED, along with versions including bags, bushels, cartloads, and wagon-loads. It seems that no matter what container or vehicle you possess, if you fill it with monkeys, you will achieve the gold standard of fun.

The OED also contains many humorous, seldom-used words that may surprise readers who equate Oxford with stale scones or language conservatism. Which brings me to…

Quiz time.

I’ve listed twenty suffix-sharing words. Can you guess which ones are Oxford-approved and which ones I pulled out of my bippy? There are ten OEDisms.

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1. assification
2. barfification
3. blondification
4. buttheadification
5. crudification
6. de-ballification
7. de-nastification
8. eggification
9. goopification
10. grossification
11. impossiblification
12. Kervorkification
13. moanification
14. nudification
15. scumification
16. sinification
17. skunkification
18. swabification
19. yikesification
20. zombification

Answers