Wild Word Friday! In the Middle Ages, people played a game in which a long sheet of paper was inscribed with a number of short descriptions. A string was attached at each description and the paper was rolled up. A player would choose a string, unroll the paper, and read the description, which would likely…
Wild Word Friday! Last week we talked about the word right. In my family, on my dad’s side, every other person is a LEFTy. Therefore, I can’t get by without giving the word, LEFT, equal billing! And in a family where half the people are LEFT-handed, you learn to accommodate. Especially at the…
Wild Word Friday! RIGHT is one of those words that takes up half a column in my dictionary, but, because this blog is short, I’ll limit my post to one meaning only – the RIGHT that refers to side of your body which “points” east when you’re facing north. I know. That sounds complicated….
Wild Word Friday! When you study languages and find an unusual looking or sounding word that is similar or the same in many languages, you’ve probably stumbled upon the verbal evidence of some widespread historic happening. HORDE is a just such a word. English: HORDE; German: HORDA; French: HORDA; Polish: HORDA. All come from the…
Wild Word Friday! I really didn’t know that such a thing as a SEICHE (pronounced saysh) even existed until I saw one in our bay. So what am I talking about? Some strange extraterrestrial being? An exotic fresh water fish species? Nope. I’m talking about the tendency of an enclosed body of water to churn …
Wild Word Friday! I love to hear about the Scripps National Spelling Bee each year – hear about it, not watch it, because my heart aches too much for those who don’t quite make it to that coveted last-person-standing place of honor. The winner this year was Snigdha Nandipati, and the last word she…
Wild Word Friday! To be perfectly honest, OID is not a word. It’s actually a syllable, and it comes to us from the Greek suffix -oeides, which is used to indicate a form or a shape. In other words, OID indicates that something is like something else. That’s exactly how we use this suffix…
Wild Word Friday! Those of us living in the USA are enduring a pre-election season of skirmishes, interviews and civilized (and some uncivilized) vitriol. So I suppose that when you see the word POLL you immediately think of all the commotion and aggravations that seem to be a part of an election year, but let’s…
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