Clearly the restored letter for Monday's estival must be a "b" -- as in, "all the cakes are good, but this one is bestival."

My guess for reheading is the word festival was created when we added feasts to our estivals.

I like the walnut cake Lestival.

And for auteur the re-heading looks like eauteur -- a fancy French word for a cruise.

I would think that Anu had in mind a more common word.

Or are we playing a game to find the least likely word? I'm always the last to realize that it's a joke.

BTW, Onelook gives two rather different definitions for bestival.

Considering the date and the weather, I think it should be "A" - aestival.

I'd say that was trivial, like eirenic for today's irenic. They're just alternate spellings of the same word. Today's beheaded word is more likely sirenic; Monday's festival.

Agreed on aestival and eirenic -- meaningless variants.

But for irenic surely the reheading should be a d, yielding direnic and referring to both kidneys. (Recall, the paradigm that Anu provided was the elephant's head on Ganesh -- so the reheading ought not be what one expects, but something that conveys a new meaning that stretches the imagination....)

Could be but sirenic is more poetic than a pair of kidneys, though maybe not all will agree on this.

Only those who have recovered from kidney stones understand the poetry of direnic functionality! I'm glad that BranShea hasn't had to learn that yet....

And for today, surely the reheading is mutilitarian: particularly suited to wreaking havoc on body parts.

( direnic) Yes, I kept something like that possibility in mind. For today, also maybe futilitarian for the careless mind.

Reading my email, nibbling on 3-minute Coffee Mug Chocolate Cake for the second time this week, and saw "rotund". I'd like to nominate "Irotund" - as an adjective to describe what I will soon look like if I keep eating these little cakes!

>irotund

ha! but personally, I'd plump for orotund.

I like "protund" as a verb to describe the act of simulating pregnancy or obesity, as when one wears a Santa suit stuffed with a pillow: "I'm protunding to be Santa."

Heh.

thanks all around for picking up on the invitation to imagine reheaded words this week! i missed yesterday because of a day-long conflict, but thought perhaps we could have erotund, describing Reubenesque women, or protund, the shape goal of a Sumo wrestler.

enjoyed the week! thanks, again.