Welcome Word Nerds! Last week, in one of the book launch teams I’m on, we were given the task of describing ourselves using three letters—QRF—and one of the team members described herself as quixotic. That led to the inevitable question, “What does quixotic mean?”—and to my associated thought: “What a great idea for a Word Nerd post!” Before we get into that, however, there’s the little matter of pronunciation. The term quixotic is derived from the character Don Quixote (pronounced don key-OH-tay) created by Miguel de Cervantes in his early 17th Century novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Nobleman Mister Quixote