Then came an audiobook to shiver my timbers. Suddenly, I heard of “clabberd” houses, stopping mid-walk to adjust my ear-buds. Maybe the author meant clobbered, as in storm-struck houses, though no ...

Calliope is a classic example in both senses. You meet the steam organ on the page, or its Greek muse namesake, and presume the word rhymes with antelope. Wrong. Coloscopy is a closer match ...