Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Found word of the day: AAABCLO

Normally a 'found word' is one that I've never seen, and learn by virtue of stumbling across it somewhere, but this one is different. I forget who it is on livejournal that mentioned this in one of their annotated games or blog entries (as one of several AAA words- speak up if it was you), but in this case I found it entertaining to have learned a word first through scrabble and then later see it in a grocery store. (In fact, I had no idea what the word meant.)



Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Episode 56 notes

Coming via iTunes shortly, or download here.


extensions BISERIATE SERIATELY

MYC a gene that transforms a normal cell into a cancerous cell
CYMA(ers) a curved molding  CYMAR/SIMAR
CYME a flower cluster

bonus extensions: earth/ micro/ youth /moon/ seaQUAKE MICROEARTHQUAKE

hook train  POUF POUFF POUFFY POUFFE POUFFED POUFED POUFFES

MOIDORE  former gold coin of Portugal (MOODIER DOOMIER)
DALASI(S) $ of gambia

GAMBIA
GAMBIR
GAMBIER an extract obtained from an Asian vine
GAMB(eas) a leg
GAMBA also good-  a bass viol

MENINX any of the membranes enclosing the brain and spinal cord MENINGES

ORCHITIS inflammation of the testicle (ORCHITIC) (A)HISTORIC

AQUACADE a swimming and diving expedition

MIKVOTH a place for ritual bathing by orthodox Jews MIKVAH (sing.)

COROTATE to rotate together

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Clearly this guy didn't study his expurgated 5's...


translation: 'FLUSH IT KOOK..OK HOWLY  HOWLIE  HOALE (SPELL IT WRITE ASSHOLE) OK BARNY' as seen on the bathroom wall at Food Lion in NC.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Found word of the day: ILOOPPRS

PROPOLIS a resinous substance used as cement by bees (pl. -LISES)

So I'm currently down in Cape Hatteras, NC with my brother and dad- and I borrowed my brother's Trader Joe brand toothpaste. All I have to say is, I like fennel in sausage, but not in toothpaste. Kevin hates it, too, but refuses to throw it away, so I figured I'd help him speed up the tube-emptying process.

I also found an amusing 'scrabble word-sighting' on a bathroom stall at the local Food Lion, which I may or may not post before I leave on Wednesday. Stay tuned.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

ADHIMRS

Here's a question: what do ASYNDETA, NEWEL, and MIDRASH have in common?
Answer: nothing! Absolutely nothing!

Well, except that these are a few words which have caught my eye in the past month or so. The reason being that I stumbled across them more than once in that period of time, which I think is unusual. The first one I noticed was missed by two livejournal users that I follow (in their annotated games); the second was used in two different paperbacks I read (Lee Child and Stephen King), and the third has a slightly longer anecdote to go along with it:

A friend of ours asked me a few weeks ago if I had ever heard of 'Nachshon', a character who is said to have been the first to enter the Red Sea when it was parted back in the Old Testament days.
Let me step back for a minute- I consider myself a 'recovering evangelical'- we moved out to western mass 5 years ago to start a church (among other reasons) and since then my views on the American version of christianity have changed quite radically. I used to be pretty politically conservative and have swung mostly in the other direction in that respect, too. So now I don't go to church or really read the bible or any of that stuff. Maybe just a product of my new liberal western mass environment. But anyways, for some reason people still see me as a bible-reading type of guy (even when I don't mention any of my background to them.)
I told her I had never heard of him, and it turns out that he is only mentioned in the MIDRASH (an early Jewish interpretation of a biblical text), which is why I never heard of him. And then today I was playing scrabble on my cellphone and the computer played MIDRASH/ S(QUIRE), and I said, 'It's a sign from God!' Just kidding.

of note: plural is MIDRASHIM, MIDRASHOT or MIDRASHOTH, and the anagram is DIRHAMS, a monetary unit (pl.) of Morocco.


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

One word anagram quiz

I totally stole this idea from jigsawn over on livejournal, check out his blog for other fun quizzes and posts.

AADINORT




Saturday, April 10, 2010

Pop Quiz

There are only two TWL words that end in -UTIC.

Let me revise that. There are only two that are 8 letters or less. (Actually, they are both 8s.)

Do you know them?

Somehow I've managed to stumble across both of them in the last month.

The first one may be the coolest word I've learned since UINTAITE.

First one to post the answer in a comment wins.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Found Word of the Day

AREPA a cornmeal cake


anagram is
PARAE plural of
PARA a woman's status regarding the bearing of offspring (related to PUERPERA?)

here's a simple recipe in case you're curious:

http://www.whats4eats.com/breads/arepas-recipe

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Alternate spellings to 'common' bingos, revisited

The original post is here.

You would think that after playing competetive scrabble for the last few years and studying high probability bingos, that I would know that

PTISAN is another way of spelling TISANE.

But then, I've also been mispronouncing it for the last three years.  Of course, listeners to the podcast won't find this suprising. At all.