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Topic: Lulu

Cartoonist Marjorie Buell was born on this date in 1904. Buell was a pioneer—not many women made a living cartooning in the 1930s and 40s—and so was her most famous creation, the comic strip character Little Lulu. Lulu was a funny page first, a girl who regularly outsmarted the neighborhood boys. Lulu is a nickname for Louise, and it's also a slang term for "one who is remarkable or wonderful." In honor of Buell and Little Lulu, today we look at some crackerjack terms for characters who are real lulus.

A crackerjack is "a person or thing of marked excellence." That word was formed by combining the sense of crack that means "of superior excellence or ability" and the word jack, synonymous with "man."

The cartoon Lulu was a real dilly of a girl (dilly is thought to have been formed by shortening and altering delightful; it describes "one who is remarkable or outstanding").

Although dilly has no connection to the herb dill, we came across two terms with similar meanings that did develop from food names. Pip, meaning "one extraordinary of its kind," comes from pippin, the name of a type of apple and also a term describing "a highly admired or very admirable person or thing." And a peach is not only the name for a sweet and tasty fruit; it also refers to anything that resembles the fruit, especially in its beauty or excellence.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.

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