Some nerds got together, via the blog Questionable Skills, and just went through the dictionary and created a sports-style bracket for every letter of the alphabet, trying to determine the best words in the English language. These aren't necessarily the prettiest words, or the most meaningful, but they are sort of the most fun. In the end, the final four, by a highly objective process of elimination, were gherkin, kerfuffle, diphthong, and hornswoggle. Kerfuffle beat out gherkin, for obvious reasons. But in the end it was no match for diphthong with its silent H.

By way of example, below is the P bracket. In our opinion, peccadillo really should have won out over phlegm.

[via The Atlantic]