The Aldo Zelnick Website

I asked my dad what Dagwood means. It's some old-guy comic character.

Sneaky and mean

random, leftover junk. Pronounced duh-bree.

acceptable to Moms

to throw something out the window. Weird. So, are there separate words for all the places you can throw things? What's the word for "to throw something under your bed," for example? (My mom's word for this is: "pigsty.")

a food that's kind of rare AND delicious. But also possibly gross, like caviar (fish eggs), fern parts (called fiddleheads), and truffles (the mushroom kind, not the chocolate kind).

when real life feels like a dream

difficult to do

to wreck and ruin

a Frenchy word that Mr. Mot taught me. Pronounced day-new-mah. It means the conclusion of a story--the boring part that's left after the exciting climax.

those extra-large wooden popsicle-sticks-without-the-yummy-popsicle they stick in your mouth at the doctor's office

OK, this is weird. A dervish is a Turkish monk. Sometimes dervishes do a dance where they spin around in circles. Somehow the phrase whirling dervish has come to mean somebody who's very fast and has lots of energy.

mean and icky

someone who likes demolishing. Marvin's all tough in P.E., but he's a wimp in band, thank goodness.

hate a lot

those kind of eggs that are hardboiled then cut in half, with some extra delicious stuff mixed together with the yolk. Yumbo.

think of a way to

Two or more dice are called dice. One dice is called a die. Don't ask me why.

a hippie word for "like," as in, "Do you dig doughnuts? I do!"

teeny-tiny