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Roald Dahl and the Word Redunculus

Last week, I challenged readers to find a literary mention of a variation on the word “redonkulous” from thirty years ago.
To make it harder, I didn’t give the exact spelling of the word as it appeared back in the early 1980s.
Even so, it only took 21 minutes and five guesses for someone to provide the right answer: Roald Dahl‘s book The BFG. The reference occurs on page 115. (I had never heard of The BFG until my daughter Olivia asked me to read it with her before bedtime one night. I would say it is the most enjoyable Roald Dahl book I have read.)
So congratulations to blog reader J, who will be getting some Freakonomics schwag.
Honorable mention goes to blog reader Steven, who acknowledged that The BFG was the answer I was looking for, but also provided a reference to the word redunculous from 1815!


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