Showing posts with label words with friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words with friends. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Wordplay Wednesday™ October 12, 2016 – Quale



Do You Sense It? Spooky … 

If you play Words With Friends, it’s very likely you (like me) frantically poke at letters to create words you’ve never heard of, hoping to hear the WWF trill of a “good” word. You play it, rarely caring what the hell it means.

In full disclosure (in case you’re about to splash my indiscretion across social media with Donald and Hillary), I clap in glee with these words; but I began this weekly word odyssey for innocent reasons: 1) I wanted to learn the meaning of an unfamiliar word; 2) I wanted to call WWF’s bluff.

Early on in my WWF game days, I quickly discovered their oft-used “fallback” definition blurb “… is a valid Words With Friends word. Sorry, no definition is available at this time!” Uh-huh.

In other words, you’re bluffing dude! Of course, if I played the word … well, ok. Especially if it resulted in twenty points or more! ;-)  Obscure but high-scoring works … but when it isn’t in a common dictionary, I feel just a little guilty … only a little.  

QUALE (kwāʹlē, kwäʹ-; pl. qualia) n. – (Philosophy) a quality, as whiteness, loudness, etc., abstracted as an independent, universal essence from a thing. [WW #81]

Although quale is in the dictionary and often a high-scoring WWF word, after playing it more times than I can count, its unique philosophical qualia finally caught my attention.
 
Consider it the sense datum of your perceptions … or, as we head into Halloween, quale might be a good word to spook the spirit of your psyche. Behold … your eeriness element. Boo!

Word Challenge: QUALE. We talk about our senses often … but do we really think about them? Can you fit quale into your week of ethereal writings?
 


                       


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Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Wordplay Wednesday™ July 8, 2015 – CARK: Worry not



Worry not lexicographers … it’s all in how you say it!

Do you wonder why certain words lose popular favor and fall into the “Archaic” category?

Language is mutable and transient by decades, fads, cultures, and eras. Sigh. Nothing ever stays the same. So, what’s changed in your vocabulary?

You're not thinking fourth dimensionally!

Is today’s language making you long for a back to the future trip? There’s a word for that …

Ah, don’t CARK your pretty little head about it … yep, this week’s word is rarely used. Even dear ol’ Webster calls it archaic.

CARK (kärk) – (archaic; vt., vi.) to worry or be worried; n. distress; anxiety. [Worry not!]

Why do archaic words continue to hang out in current dictionaries, taking up space? Good question – Mr. Webster, are you reading this?

For obvious reasons, Noah Webster is one of my heroes. Not only was he the epitome of lexicographers, but he was considered a fringe Founding Father of the United States. (Appropriate for one of this month’s Wordplay Wednesday entries, right?)

A teacher following the American Revolution, Webster abhorred how outdated the school system had become. Children still read primers from England, with books’ text “… often pledging their allegiance to King George. Webster believed that Americans should learn from American books, so in 1783, he wrote his own textbook: A Grammatical Institute of the English Language.Do you know it by its nickname? ...

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Wordplay Wednesday April 22, 2015 – May the Force be With You



Do you play Words with Friends®? Or still rally ‘round the ol’ Scrabble® board on Saturday night? (It isn’t just for the 39 and Holding Club folks!) How about crossword puzzles?

However you hone your wordsmithing skills, betcha don’t know the definition of half the numerous three- to five-letter words you play that confound and frustrate your opponents. Can’t you just hear their “What the hell is that word?!” bursting through the Internet at you? Here's another ...

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Wordplay Wednesday April 15, 2015 - Taxing Pirates



Pirates are in vogue for Wordplay Wednesday** 

Speaking of tax day … when faced with daily irritating life events, occasionally I eschew the R-rated expletive for a more family friendly but equally expressive, form of frustration – one which often garners a deriding chuckle for sounding like a swarthy pirate. 

Yes, I speak of the colorful, “aargh!”

Ha! You say. That isn’t even a word. Au contraire, my lovelies. Much to my wordsmithing surprise, it turned up in a Words With Friends game played by my author-buddy, John Harnish; but WWF had no definition for it (and neither did John, but it gave him a double-word score!). So …