Do You Know What a Lozenge Is?

I hope not because if you do this post will be embarrassing for me.

Here’s a question: Do you know what a lozenge is? I was reading a piece of writing over the weekend, which I assure you I do not intend as a brag, and at one point it listed shapes. (It was a book about what shapes there are.) (Very arduous.) The last one was “lozenge.” What?

Do you know what a lozenge is?

Tell me.

Do you?????

This morning I polled one current work acquaintance, Christine Friar, and one former work acquaintance, Taylor Berman, about whether they know what a lozenge is. I told Christine what it is and she said, “i did not know that,” then she said, “and in that case people have been…..taking some liberties with that word.” I told Taylor and he said “wow” and then, “i thought it was like, german for cough drop.” I asked my non-work acquaintance Brendan McHugh if he knew and he said “i didn’t” and then “interesting fact.” I asked my mom, a familial acquaintance, and she said she did not know that and also pointed out that lozenges are not shaped like diamonds, which is what the word means. A rhombus or diamond shape.

…

What?!!!!!!!!!

Here’s what Wikipedia says:

A lozenge (◊), often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym (from the French losange) for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus — a rhombus with acute angles of less than 45°.[1] The lozenge shape is often used in parquetry and as decoration on ceramics, silverware andtextiles. It also features in heraldry and playing cards.

“Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus,” yeah right. Wikipedia straight up lying about the thing lozenge most often refers to. “A thin rhombus,” give me a break. Uh — wikipedia? Ever heard of…uhhh…maybe…

Meaning a cough drop?

That’s what I’d say it refers to most often: a lozenge (meaning a cough drop).

Maybe it’s because I took track three math for the last two years of high school, a class in which we learned how to use the Microsoft program “Excel,” but I never heard that lozenge means “rhombus or diamond shape.” Seems crazy.

So.

There’s something you may or may not have known about the word “lozenge.”