The Twelve Essays of Christmas: Partridge!

Most of what I learned about grammar in school was wrong.

English doesn't have a true infinitive, and even if it did, there'd be nothing wrong in splitting it.

There are not exactly eight types of word - the number of categories depends on the system of categorisation. Obviously.

English doesn't have three tenses referring to time - namely past, present and future. Tense is a grammatical category, while 'timeframe' is a semantic one. We use the so-called 'present tense' to refer to plans for the future, as in "We leave tomorrow", and we use the so-called 'past tense' to refer to things which aren't the case in the present, as in "If I knew, I'd say".

And by the way, there's only two tenses.

It's not true that every sentence needs a verb. Sentences like "Wow!" and "Well, yes and no" are definitely verbless, and we have a vaguely defined category of words which occur in verbless utterances. We call them exclamations, or interjections, and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary contains 297 of them.

Now wouldn't it be useful to have a list of all the exclamations in the COED? And indeed all the pronouns, verbs, 'determiners' and so on? Well, it might be useful to me, and it might even be interesting to you.

I've spent the last few days extracting words and their categories from the COED (11th edition). The book has 28 'types' of word, and I'll be going through them. Time, personal energy, internet access and upcoming holidays permitting.

So, in no particular order other than alphabetical, here are the 297 interjections, exclamations and sententially verbless utterances.

abracadabra	adieu	adios
affirmative	ah	aha
ahem	ahoy	alack
alleluia	alley	aloha
alright	amen	arrividerci
attaboy	avast	avaunt
ave	aw	ay
aye	bah	bam
banco	banzai	bedad
begad	begone	begorra
bejabers	bejesus	bingo
bismillah	blast	blimey
bo	boing	boo
boohoo	bother	bow
boy	bravo	brother
brrr	bye	bye
capeesh	caramba	cave
charmed	charming	check
cheerio	cheers	chin
chop	Christ	ciao
confound	coo	cor
crikey	cripes	croeso
crumbs	dammit	damn
damnation	dang	dash
dear	diddums	doh
drat	duh	easy
ee	eek	egad
eh	encore	er
eureka	arewell	faugh
fie	lip	floreat
fore	udge	gad
gadzooks	gangway	Gawd
gee	gee	Geez
Geronimo	gesundheit	giddy
God	Godspeed	golly
good	goodbye	goodness
goodnight	goody	gosh
gotcha	gracious	ha
hah	hail	hallelujah
hallo	halloo	hang
heave	heck	heel
heigh	heigh	hell
hello	help	hem
here	hey	hi
hic	hip	hist
hiya	hmm	ho
ho	hoicks	holla
hooray	hoots	how
howdy	howzat	hoy
huh	hullo	hum
humph	hurrah	hushaby
huzza	nshallah	eepers
Jeez	Jesus	ings
awks	o	ook
or	ord	Lordy
umme	man	marry
mercy	mush	night
nit	no	nope
O	och	ochone
oh	oho	ohone
oi	OK	okey
olé	ooh	oops
oops	ouch	ow
oy	oyez	pah
pardon	pax	peccavi
phew	phut	phwoah
pish	poo	poof
pooh	pouf	pow
presto	prithee	prosit
pshaw	psst	quite
rah	at	rather
really	ight	righto
righty	oger	salut
say	sayonara	selah
shabash	shalom	shazam
sheesh	shh	shoo
shoot	shucks	shush
siree	skol	slainte
steady	strewth	struth
suck	a	ta
ta	ally	there
timber	oodle	touché
tush	ut	tut
ugh	uh	uh
uh	uh	um
ups	upsy	viva
voila	wahoo	wakey
welcome	well	whacko
whatever	whee	wheesht
whew	whisht	whist
whoa	whoops	whoops
whoosh	why	wilco
wo	woomph	woosh
wotcha	yah	yah
yahoo	yeah	yeehaw
yes	yessir	yikes
yippee	yo	yo
yoicks	yoo	yuck
yum	zounds