Today’s Wacky Word Wednesday – Megillah

Some people enjoy seeing the big picture and hearing the condensed version of a story but there are those who appreciate details and are eager to hear the whole enchilada. In today’s Wacky Word Wednesday, we will explore books that tell stories in great detail and learn a new way to say “the whole nine yards.”

Megillah[mə-gi-lə]–noun A long involved story or account.

“The whole megillah” is a phrase often used to describe “an overly extended explanation.”  Megillah is a Hebrew word, meaning “scroll,” and it refers to one of the five books of the Bible’s Old Testament—Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther—traditionally read in synagogues to celebrate the festival of Purim. The authors of these books went to great lengths to explain the details of their stories, but some listeners might find them too elaborate and boring. That’s why it seemed fitting for some people to also define megillah as a “long, tedious, involved story or account.”

On special occasions, a megillah can be fun and entertaining, but when you have to listen to a sales’s pitch or a story told in a droning voice, it can be hard to sit through.  So when time is of the essence, sometimes it’s better to keep whatever you want to say short and sweet.  Jazz singer Frank Sinatra expressed the importance of being concise when he sang Come Blow Your Horn in 1963:

“The taller the tree is, the sweeter the peach. I’ll give you the whole megillah in a one word speech: reach.”

To show how you can use megillah in a sentence, here are a few examples:

• I asked for instructions, and he explained the whole manual to me, the whole megillah, from beginning to end. It took two hours. (Urban Dictionary)
• Silly, those people who make a megillah out of acting. Just learn the lines; the rest is up to the director. (the Post Standard of Syracuse, New York, December 1965)

We better not go into the whole megillah about the history of the Purim celebration, because some of our readers might not be interested in this topic. But if you are, you can read more about this Jewish celebration here.  See you next time! Hope you enjoyed Today’s Wacky Word Wednesday!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

If you’re interested in learning more about CSOFT’s globalization and localization solutions, visit our website here.