Your Word for the Day 12/10

On 12/13/03 12:57 PM, in article , "Ellice"
wrote:

On 12/11/03 6:06 PM,"Cheryl Isaak" posted:

On 12/11/03 5:54 PM, in article
, "Lucille"
wrote:

Thanks for this link Cheryl. I love words and this is going to give me a
lot of pleasure.
Lucille

http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/unuwords.htm



Me too!
Cheryl

Ditto ;^) Helps with doing the crosswords, etc - and the very competitive
Scrabble playing that happens here.

ellice


I love cross words!
Cheryl

I've been doing them for over 35 years now.

Several years back my ego was a tad bit inflated and I entered a crossword
puzzle tournament. I drive to West Hackensack, NJ with a friend and left him
to find a way to amuse himself all day while I tortured myself. Those people
were downright killers!! I placed 85 out of about 200 people - and was
pleased enough with that. I started the drive home but was so mentally
exhausted after about 10 miles that I turned my car keys over and left my
friend drive the other almost 200 miles. It took me about three days to
decompress after that and I no longer want to compete. I learned that
although I know alot of very unusual words, (1) I don't know enough of them
and (2) I can't handle the pressure of the competition. :-)

I did get a free crossword puzzle book for driving so far. Oh, and I met
Stanley Newman, crossword puzzle write/editor for Random House. The man does
NOT have a sense of humor - or at least not a very developed one. Too bad,
life is alot more fun when you can laugh.


"Cheryl Isaak" wrote in message
...
On 12/13/03 12:57 PM, in article , "Ellice"
wrote:

On 12/11/03 6:06 PM,"Cheryl Isaak" posted:

On 12/11/03 5:54 PM, in article
, "Lucille"
wrote:

Thanks for this link Cheryl. I love words and this is going to give
me a
lot of pleasure.
Lucille

http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/unuwords.htm



Me too!
Cheryl

Ditto ;^) Helps with doing the crosswords, etc - and the very
competitive
Scrabble playing that happens here.

ellice


I love cross words!
Cheryl

On 12/13/03 4:06 PM,"JL Amerson" posted:

I've been doing them for over 35 years now.

Several years back my ego was a tad bit inflated and I entered a crossword
puzzle tournament. I drive to West Hackensack, NJ with a friend and left him
to find a way to amuse himself all day while I tortured myself. Those people
were downright killers!! I placed 85 out of about 200 people - and was

I'm impressed that you went thru with going! And all the way to lovely
Hackensack ;^) Nothing like the "boggle tournaments" featured on "King of
the Hill" (DH loves that show).

pleased enough with that. I started the drive home but was so mentally
exhausted after about 10 miles that I turned my car keys over and left my
friend drive the other almost 200 miles. It took me about three days to
decompress after that and I no longer want to compete. I learned that
although I know alot of very unusual words, (1) I don't know enough of them
and (2) I can't handle the pressure of the competition. :-)

Good for you for even trying. Can totally understand being exhausted. I
personally hate those kind of competitions. Maybe it's ego, or smugness -
but I just hate the way so many people are sooooo serious about such. When I
was in undergrad school, the frat house I hung at was full of serious bridge
players. Very serious. Guys going to NCAA championships - seems ridiculous.
Anyhow, I like to play, and prefer to have fun doing it. Got to a point
where I refused to play with certain of the guys - they were so cut-throat.
But, I loved to play with the pledges - who needed to at least learn - and
some of the others with "good" attitudes. But the pressure - guys coming in
to look over your shoulder, sometimes it was too ridiculous. I stopped
playing for a while, then picked up in grad school - but we acted like
idiots all the time - couldn't be serious.

XH was a chess player - played tournaments. I played with him - he was
convinced that I could be a "great" chess player - have the right kind of
memory and devious mind. But, again, sometimes it seems so much not fun when
the people you're spending all this time in a tourney with just aren't fun -
away from the game. Now, DH refuses to play chess with me - just for some
reason can't believe that I just like to play for the mental exercise. I
guess it's all the chess books that bother him. But, he will play some
killer Scrabble.

I did get a free crossword puzzle book for driving so far. Oh, and I met
Stanley Newman, crossword puzzle write/editor for Random House. The man does
NOT have a sense of humor - or at least not a very developed one. Too bad,
life is alot more fun when you can laugh.

Nice you at least got a book. I have a huge, Unabridged Merriam-Webster
dictionary that lives on an antique book stand. It was my DFs - he won it
for being a finalist in some word contest back in the late 40s - I think
from the NY Times.

Too bad about the lack of humor. There are some puzzle people with senses of
humor - judging from the puzzles in Games ;^)

Ellice

Ellice wrote:
I have a huge, Unabridged Merriam-Webster
dictionary that lives on an antique book stand. It was my DFs - he won it
for being a finalist in some word contest back in the late 40s -

Oh! I am drooling and green-eyed! I love dictionaries!

Rhonda

"Ellice" wrote in message
...
(snip)
I'm impressed that you went thru with going! And all the way to lovely
Hackensack ;^) Nothing like the "boggle tournaments" featured on "King of
the Hill" (DH loves that show).

No, but a lot of the others (especially the only female in the final four)
were Peggy Hill wannabes! Waaaaaaaaaaaay too serious about it. My sense of
competition isn't as acute as theirs. I have other interests anyway - like
needlework and beading. :-)

JoAnn

On 12/17/03 7:50 PM, in article
, "LUSNMYMIND"
wrote:

Ellice wrote:
I have a huge, Unabridged Merriam-Webster
dictionary that lives on an antique book stand. It was my DFs - he won it
for being a finalist in some word contest back in the late 40s -

Oh! I am drooling and green-eyed! I love dictionaries!

Rhonda

My favorite dictionary is a 1920 Webster's that I bought for a dollar. Thing
must be 8" thick!

Cheryl

On 12/17/03 11:45 PM,"Cheryl Isaak" posted:

On 12/17/03 7:50 PM, in article
, "LUSNMYMIND"
wrote:

Ellice wrote:
I have a huge, Unabridged Merriam-Webster
dictionary that lives on an antique book stand. It was my DFs - he won it
for being a finalist in some word contest back in the late 40s -

Oh! I am drooling and green-eyed! I love dictionaries!

Rhonda

My favorite dictionary is a 1920 Webster's that I bought for a dollar. Thing
must be 8" thick!

What a great buy! Dictionaries really are great things.

I love this dictionary. It must weigh 15#. It was one of my favorite
childhood things - has lots of color plates - all the flags of the world,
maps, animals, plants. Just wonderful. I must've been such a geek -can
remember spending time just with that book. Used to make a game out of just
flipping it to a section, and then DB and I would learn the words, or read
to each other from it, etc. And of course, it reminds me of my DF. Am just
glad that my awful SIL didn't manage to snatch this from the house - while
she was snatching other things (yes, this is the woman who stole all my
parents little personal mementos out of their bedroom - so that she could
make a display for my brother - forgetting that he wasn't an only child). I
think that 95% of the words were too big for her, so.... OK, that was mean,
but I couldn't help it.

We used to have an old globe as well, I think from the late 19th century. It
was awesome fun because so many countries were totally different - names,
borders, etc. I don't know what happened to that - it disappeared sometime
around when I went away to school (DB probably took it to his flea market
booth and sold it).

ellice

My favorite dictionary is a 1920 Webster's that I bought for a dollar.
Thing
must be 8" thick!

I have a 1966 Webster's, which isn't all that old I know, bought it at a
library sale. On the front title page it says 'Webster's Dictionary New
Edition' and then underneath that someone wrote "NEW depends on how you wear
your hat" LOL that always makes me laugh. I like it because it has the roman
numerals, the Greek alphabet, the metric system, and shows the origins and
first meanings in the languages that they came from, a history of the english
language, etc. It's not big, but bedside handy being a little larger than
paperback sized.
I also like to just sit and read my dictionaries, and encyclopedias. And I love
maps, too. I have maps hanging all over my bedroom. I love all those maps you
get out of the National Geographic magazines. I think my husband wishes I'd be
a little more uh, traditional? in my decorating. lol We homeschool, too, so I
love having maps around for those impromptu discussions about where places are
and such, and I like to quiz them and ask where a place is and they find it.

Rhonda- Hockey stitcher and dictionary enthusiast

On 12/18/03 9:44 AM,"LUSNMYMIND" posted:

My favorite dictionary is a 1920 Webster's that I bought for a dollar.
Thing
must be 8" thick!

I have a 1966 Webster's, which isn't all that old I know, bought it at a
library sale. On the front title page it says 'Webster's Dictionary New
Edition' and then underneath that someone wrote "NEW depends on how you wear
your hat" LOL that always makes me laugh. I like it because it has the roman
numerals, the Greek alphabet, the metric system, and shows the origins and
first meanings in the languages that they came from, a history of the english
language, etc. It's not big, but bedside handy being a little larger than
paperback sized.

That is a good handy one to have around. We have the 90something version in
the house. At work, that's the dictionary we get - so when the newer one
comes around, we can take the old ones home. I must confess - it's the
standard Scrabble one - as my humongous ones - both the old, and the 90ish
version - are still packed up. Leaves room for good arguments.

I also like to just sit and read my dictionaries, and encyclopedias. And I
love
maps, too. I have maps hanging all over my bedroom. I love all those maps you
get out of the National Geographic magazines. I think my husband wishes I'd be
a little more uh, traditional? in my decorating. lol

We must have a bunch of us that are kindred spirits - besides all loving to
stitch. It's just fun to have the time to just read reference stuff.
Personally, I've been kind of off encyclopedias a bit - for 3rd grade - that
was what I did. We'd moved from NY to FL, and I'd been in some more forward
school early accelerated program - so for 3rd grade - there wasn't enough
for me to do - I did Spanish class, and spent some class-room time - but the
teacher and principle had my folks buy me the World Book, with the Science
supplements - and I read it - for the year. What fun. No wonder my brain is
full of useless information ;^)

We homeschool, too, so I
love having maps around for those impromptu discussions about where places are
and such, and I like to quiz them and ask where a place is and they find it.

They're so interesting. It's amazing to me that in so many other parts of
the world students, kids are taught geography as a sociology, political,
demography kind of thing - and to us people just think of it as where are
the borders, the mountains, etc. Maps say so much, and can be so beautiful -
when you think of the work that it took to do the old maps, and the gorgeous
cartouches.

I have a poster from the 1492, Age of Exploration exhibit at the Smithsonian
(years ago). It's the "Catalan Atlas" - a map done on 7 wooden panels in
1375. Totally fascinating. But, the big poster is now slid behind something,
while I guess ultimately it'll go downstairs (it's drymounted on foamcore,
but really is big - like 3'X 4.5' .

Great idea for home schooling, and impromptu discussions!

ellice

Rhonda- Hockey stitcher and dictionary enthusiast

Ellice wrote:

What a great buy! Dictionaries really are great things.
When DS#1 was about 8, I got a really good deal on a nice children's
dictionary from the back of some Little Debbie snack package. Gave it
to him for his birthday. He looked at me and said, "What do I want a
dictionary for?" After a little discussion on being a gracious gift
recipient I showed him all the interesting things in a dictionary,
like how the words came to be (did you know the real meaning of magazine
is "a storage place"? I didn't until I read it to him in his new
dictionary!), pronunciation keys, etc., and the back had (mostly) color
pics of the presidents. A few times he actually sat down and just read
the dictionary! ))

--
Joan

See my first-ever design he
http://www.heritageshoppe.com/joan.jpg

"Stitch when you are young and poor, frame when you are old and rich."
- Elizabeth's (rctn'r) sister's MIL (Barbara Marr)