A year ago a new section of my website, the English Rules Word of the Day, was born. I started it after chatting with a couple friends at work about words and bemoaning the lack of inspiration in the words generated by the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the day. I can’t remember if they challenged me to do my own word of the day or if I just said I was going to, but whichever it was, I felt compelled to at least give it a shot. To be honest, I didn’t think it would last this long. But as the year progressed, more and more people signed up for the email notification, making it harder and harder to stop the madness. The list is at more than 160 recipients and growing.

I haven’t managed to get a word out every single day, but I try not to let more than two days pass between updates. Along with the word and definition, I usually type up something about where I saw the word or what inspired me to choose it for that day. Here are a few of my favorites from the past year. Click the links to read their inspiration:

• obviate: to anticipate and dispose of effectively; render unnecessary
• insouciant: marked by blithe unconcern; nonchalant
• defenestration: an act of throwing someone or something out of a window
• confabulate: 1. (psychology) to fill in gaps in one’s memory with fabrications that one believes to be facts 2. to talk casually; chat
• antipodes: 1. any two places or regions that are on diametrically opposite sides of the earth 2. something that is the exact opposite or contrary of another

If you want to sign up for email notification when I post new words, send in your email address at the sign-up page. You’ll get email with a link that should take you to a confirmation page to ensure that somebody else isn’t signing you up against your will. This confirmation thing is new, though, so I may not have worked out all of the bugs yet. If it breaks on you, just reply to the email and ask me to put your name in manually.