A few weeks ago, a group of lager-loving readers in Chicago offered a challenge no word lover could decline. Their scholarly purpose was to catalog all English verbs of “pedal locomotion.”

Thus they began alphabetically with amble, bounce, crawl, dodge, edge, and so on. They ran low on beer and inspiration at “F” and “P,” and found slim pickings at “K” and “V.” They gave up altogether on “Q,” “X,” “Y” and “Z,” whereupon their corresponding secretary, Robert Johnson, asked for help from readers of this column.

More than a hundred readers of this column have responded to Mr. Johnson’s invitation. The letter “F” gave them no trouble: flit, flounce, float, flutter, felt, fled and even festinate. I had never in my life met “festinate.” It dates from 1595 and means “to hurry, hasten.” Kind of grabs you, right?

The letter “K” drew only a handful of nominations, none of them very convincing. Perhaps a character could “knife” his way across a crowded floor, but “to kite” is strained and “to keck” is way out of bounds.

As for “Q,” nothing much. “He quartered the ballroom, searching for his wife.” “She quivered toward the waiting bed.” There were two nominations of “to quest” and one each for “to queue” and “to quickstep.”

The letter “V” proved no challenge at all. A fictional hero reasonably could vamp, vault, veer, venture and vamoose. The committee tabled motions to admit “vacillate,” “vector” and “vacate” to the ranks of pedal locomotion. Two nominations arrived for “volt” or “volte.” Because of doubts about their verbiness, they too were put on hold. None of my dictionaries indicates that volt is a verb, but it surely ought to be. If one volts twice, it is a revolt. It’s also unlawful.

An initial “W” offered an easy challenge: Readers nominated waded, wandered, wedged, whipped, whisked, weaved and wove. We heard from Betty Smith in Seattle: “The lustful lord wenched his way through London.” Motion denied! The subject requires motions of the feet!

The letter “Y” turned up only yielded, yo-yo’d, yawed and yahooed. Four readers nominated “zoomed,” as in, “The teenager zoomed in and out of the mall.” The committee noted six zigzagged and four zipped, whereupon the judges adjourned sine die. They will not reassemble any time soon.

James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.