Top Ten Unusual Words from Famous Hymns (Part 2)

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October 2026 Anniversary Celebration

Hmm, has it really been four years since we launched the klugness (pronounced "kloog-ness") site? Why yes, our favorite website turns four years old on October 17, 2026.

As we did last year, we've decided to set aside the entire month of October to celebrate this anniversary achievement. As part of that celebration, we'll be making updates to this home page every day during the month of October (i.e., starting on Thursday, October 1 and running through Saturday, October 31). Please check us out daily during October to get a guided tour down memory lane.

What do we have planned, you ask? One example is that our webmaster has used his knowledge of PHP programming to set up a daily "slide show" of selected funny top ten lists from our first four years of online existence. The grouchy dude programmed it all up front so that the "throwback list of the day" changes automatically each day during October 2026—even if the old fart takes a nap and forgets to update it!

As part of the 4th anniversary update, we've added content published during the last year, and rotated many of the highlighted lists from prior years. So, bookmark our site and check back every day during October for the Throwback List of the Day and other klugness propaganda. Thank you!!

Top Ten Unusual Words from Famous Hymns—Part 2
Num	Unusual Word	Hymn Title	Excerpt	Lyrics By	Year
10.)	life-gate	To God Be the Glory	...and opened the life-gate so that all may go in	Fanny J. Crosby	1875
9.)	billows	Count Your Blessings	When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed	Johnson Oatman, Jr.	1897
8.)	Calvary	At Calvary	there my burdened soul found liberty, at Calvary	William R. Newell	1895
7.)	fraught	He Leadeth Me	O words with heavenly comfort fraught	Joseph H. Gilmore	1862
6.)	cleft	Rock of Ages	Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee	Augustus Montague Toplady	1776
5.)	bosoms	Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us	With thy love our bosoms fill	Dorothy A. Thrupp	1836
4.)	waft	Jesus Saves!	Waft it on the rolling tide, Jesus saves! Jesus saves!	Priscilla Jane Owens	1882
3.)	manifold	Great Is Thy Faithfulness	Join with all nature in manifold witness	Thomas O. Chisholm	1923
2.)	dross	How Firm a Foundation	I only design thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine	Unclear	1787
1.)	art	How Great Thou Art	How great Thou art	Carl Boberg (orig. Swedish) / Stuart K. Hine	1895 / 1949

Posted September 13, 2026

Previous All Top Ten Lists

This image of "a traditional Christian worship service" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

Commentary

This funny top ten list is the second of two installments that make light of the way many old-time church hymns include outdated words that are no longer in common use. Each of the 10 obscure words shown on the list is accompanied by: the title of a well-known hymn, an excerpt from the hymn's lyrics including the obscure word, the author of the hymn's lyrics, and the year the hymn was written.

This nostalgic look back in time may be a fun exercise for the old-timers among us, but will most likely go over the young-uns' heads. The Gen Z level of interest in this subject is probably on a par with any discussion of automobiles before the advent of power steering or power windows. It's not that they doubt what the old fart is telling them, but moreso that they just don't find it interesting.

In modern Christian churches, the initial portion of a Sunday service generally features praise-and-worship music sung by a praise team that is accompanied by a band. The band usually includes guitar(s), bass guitar, keyboard, and drums. The congregation stands and some parishioners sing along and/or hold a hand up as a gesture of praise to God, but it's more like watching a show than participating in a sing-a-long.

Back in the day, however, the initial portion would have included traditional hymns sung by the congregation using a hymnal stored in the back of the pew in front of the parishioners. The instrumental accompaniment was typically piano and organ. Half the people in the congregation couldn't sing a lick, but our webmaster still has fond memories of these congregational sing-a-longs from the Baptist churches he grew up in. This type of service hasn't completely disappeared, as some modern churches have an early-morning "traditional" service for old farts like Klugmeister, and a later "contemporary" one for younger folks who find hymns about as relevant as black-and-white TVs. Dacht.

Anyhoo, we've generally extracted these examples of unusual words from the more popular hymns. We've generally avoided the low-hanging fruit of words like thou/thee/thine/thy and similar archaic words. We've also avoided gospel hymns associated with Christmas and the birth of Christ because we think of them more as Christmas songs than church hymns.

As for the obscure words, "life-gate" (item 10) is an unusual compound word that conjures the image of a gate into life. "To God Be The Glory" is the second Fanny Crosby hymn that we've included in this two-part series, which is a testament to her prolific output. "Billows" (item 9) made its initial appearance in Part 1 and appears again in the context of "waves" (of smoke or the sea) in yet another hymn ("Count Your Blessings").

"Calvary" (item 8) is sometimes used in hymns to name the location where Jesus was crucified. This name for the location is shown in Luke 23:33 in some English translations of the Bible, including the ubiquitous King James Version; however, many translations of that verse show the place as "The Skull," which is the English translation of the Latin word calvaria. The equivalent "location" verses in the other three gospels (Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, John 19:17) list the location of the crucifixion as the place of the skull, or Golgotha in Hebrew, but no mention of Calvary. We've been unable to develop a concise discussion concerning this, so here's an interesting article on the Calvary topic for your reference.

"How Great Thou Art" was written in Swedish ("O Store Gud") in 1885 by Carl Boberg. (Store means "great" but has two syllables in Swedish, so the title has four syllables in both English and Swedish.) The well-known English translation was written by Stuart Hine in 1949 and popularized in Billy Graham's crusades.

Notice to Readers: Klugmeister has recently been out trying to build an online presence for the klugness site on Medium. He recently posted a story on Medium about Has Diet Coke Jumped the Shark?. Klugmeister's stories are normally behind a pay wall on Medium, but that link should get you into the story for free as a "friend" of the klugness site. Check it out!

Welcome to klugness.com!

The U.S. website www.klugness.com was launched in October 2022 with over 100 funny top ten lists, and has since increased that number to over 200. The klugness site doesn't include jokes in the traditional sense, but is dedicated to humor using a David Letterman-style top ten list format. A portion of the content focuses on American politics, with the site generally leaning left, while the rest is garden-variety humor ala MAD magazine. We hope you enjoy the site!

This image of "two eight year old boys arguing over who has the biggest tortoise" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page. This image appears on List 267 - Top Ten Origins of the Trump-Musk Feud.

This home page shows the most recent top ten list. Please check out the full archive of funny top ten lists on klugness.com at All Top Ten Lists. Note these lists were created up to seven years ago, even though the klugness site itself is three years old (we'll be four years old on October 17). The archive page also includes a "List Sampler" table of 18 selected funny top ten lists that will give you a sense of our content without having to tackle all 200+ funny top ten lists. Beneath the "List Sampler" is information about the pictures we've been adding to the site since the beginning of 2023. The pictures are generated using a combination of artificial intelligence and traditional means.

Getting back to the funny top ten lists, we offer a couple of targeted subsets that focus on particular themes. For example, the Trump-Themed Lists are critical of President Trump, so you won't like them if you're a Trump aficionado.

Another theme is the clever May 2020 Now vs. Then series, which consists of 10 funny top ten lists that compare and contrast the initial coronavirus times to historical times in an amusing way (e.g., "stay at home" vs. "rock and roll all nite"). That early pandemic theme was created in 2000, but it feels sooo ancient! Based on viewership of these pages, it appears that most folks are loathe to revisit that challenging period, and we don't blame you!

Note that the themed lists are also included on the All Top Ten Lists archive (i.e., the themed lists are a subset of the full archive), so if you looked at the full archive, you won't find any new material on the themed lists. This handy bit of intell could free up more time for you to gaze at your phone, guess which Trump cabinet member will be fired next, or wonder how much longer the "maybe two weeks, maybe three" war will last.

For general information about klugness.com (including frequently asked questions, privacy policy, how to pronounce "klugness," etc.), use the following link: About.

If over 200 top ten lists is too much to handle all at once, another alternative is to check out a few samples of recent top ten lists:

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Thanks for visiting klugness.com, and please check back periodically for new content!

Throwback List of the Day

About the Throwback

As part of our celebration of the fourth anniversary of the launch of the klugness website (October 17, 2026), we are highlighting selected funny top ten lists from among the 200+ lists that we've published to date.

Each day during October we will display a different top ten list as the Throwback List of the Day. (The list changes at midnight New York time.) We believe these lists are representative of the breadth of our work and are better than our average list, but your mileage may vary. The throwback list will appear each day in this section, immediately underneath the current top ten list on our home page.

Note that some of these throwback lists were written prior to the date the site was launched (i.e., prior to October 17, 2022, and as far back as 2019). We've generally included content from throughout our history. If you feel we've excluded a list that you think is particularly good, please drop us a note so that we can take into account your feedback when we develop next year's anniversary celebration lists.

Please celebrate with us by visiting this home page each day during October to view the Throwback List of the Day.

Today's Throwback List: List 156
Date Written: 05/17/2023

Top Ten Satirical Responses to Frustrating Events—Then vs. Now
Num	Time Period	Frustrating Event	Action Taken in Response
Num	Time Period	Frustrating Event	Then	Now
10.)	1960s	Ran out of pot at Woodstock	Asked friend Barbara for a joint	Shot the guy who owned the farm
9.)	1970s	Preference for punk rock over disco	Spray painted "disco sucks" graffiti far and wide	Shot up Studio 54
8.)	1970s	Lisa defaced your Leif Garrett poster	Kissed Lisa's boyfriend at the matinee	Shot up the movie theater during a showing of Jaws
7.)	1980s	Spencer's Gifts is sold out of posters of your favorite hair band	Cussed out loud and went to the arcade to play Defender	Called the SWAT team on the person who beat you at Minecraft
6.)	1980s	Next door neighbor won't stop blasting "Cum on Feel the Noize"	Bought noize-canceling headphones	Knocked on neighbor's door to complain about the noize, but then he shot you
5.)	1990s	Argued over whether the floating door could have supported both Rose and Jack	Moved on, watched the latest episode of Beverly Hills, 90210	Anonymously trolled the Titanic forum, threatened to shoot everyone
4.)	1990s	Sonic the Hedgehog knocks on your door	Redirected him to Amy Rose's house down the street	Opened fire at him
3.)	2000s	You accidentally got into the wrong Dodge Neon	You apologized, then found your stone white Dodge Neon nearby	Got shot by the crazy guy in the first car
2.)	2010s	Your mom wouldn't buy you skinny jeans	Got job shoveling snow; bought them yourself	Turned 18, bought an AR 15, shot your mom and the guy who drives the snow plow
1.)	2020s	Drove up the wrong driveway	Realized mistake, left	Got shot and killed by the homeowner

This image of "building defaced with 'Disco Sucks' graffiti" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

Throwback lists have been selected for special treatment based on subjective considerations, including wingspan, hair color, and shoe size. Viewers may form their own opinions on whether the selected lists are of higher quality than the lists that were not selected for special treatment. In particular, viewers may adopt alternative points of view such as: (1) they all suck, (2) who cares?, and (3) meh. Selected lists do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this network, Elon Musk, or your mama. Blah blah blah express written permission yada yada yada professional driver on closed course lorem ipsum dolor investments may lose value. Note that the throwback list shown above is an excerpt that does not include the "Commentary" box—to view the entire original page, use the pressable links in the table below.

In case you missed it...
Date	Throwback List of the Day (Pressable Link)
October 1, 2025	List 156—Top Ten Satirical Responses to Frustrating Events—Then vs. Now

Top Ten Unusual Words from Famous Hymns—Part 2

Top Ten Satirical Responses to Frustrating Events—Then vs. Now

In case you missed it...