Favourite words found

[crazykate]

Starting this thread again in the new forum.
Share some of your best or favourite words here!

I just found WARMONGERING for two new records in a 4x4 that had been played 20 times before. Would have been happy to find it even if it hadn't been for the records, every time I see that word I hear it in my head, spoken in the voice of Karl Urban as Éomer in the LOTR movies.

[Jamie_Pi]

I found Quasar, no records or anything but I loved seeing it.

[fasteddieb]

Nice finds!

[lalatan]

Good finds both of you. I'm growing a fondness for what I think of as "Frankenstein words." It's when you throw a bunch of word fragments together that seem highly unlikely to work and it comes to life! On a board last month I spotted PERFECTIBI-. That's where it ended though. I thought it would end in -ibilities. So I tacked on -lian instead. , PERFECTIBILIAN was accepted! Yesterday I spotted latitudin-. I had played PLATITUDINALISMS, SOLITUDINARIANS ALTITUDINAL successfully before. So I threw everything in the pot, came up with LATITUDINARIANISM and it worked. lol

kate, I recall your find of SPHAEROCOBALTITE. I did not know sphaero- was a prefix nor had I ever heard of cobaltite. Amazing find.
I remember you and I used to have a dread of -logy and medical words. Now I actually enjoy the challenge of finding them. You, Spike and I have come a long, long way since then.

[Spike1007]

Good finds both of you. I'm growing a fondness for what I think of as "Frankenstein words." It's when you throw a bunch of word fragments together that seem highly unlikely to work and it comes to life! On a board last month I spotted PERFECTIBI-. That's where it ended though. I thought it would end in -ibilities. So I tacked on -lian instead. , PERFECTIBILIAN was accepted! Yesterday I spotted latitudin-. I had played PLATITUDINALISMS, SOLITUDINARIANS ALTITUDINAL successfully before. So I threw everything in the pot and came up with LATITUDINARIANISM and it worked. lol

I like those too, obviously, and "Frankenstein words" is a great way to describe them. (One of my favorite found words was FUTILITARIANISMS (or some form of that, anyway).) As for assembling parts, I think it was erakis (with the old forums gone, it's hard to be sure) who did an analysis of about a zillion boards, looking at different pieces (like HYPER, INTER, TRANS, MICRO, GRAPH, etc.) and had statistics for how often those were contained in the longest word. I wish I had copied & kept that list. Anyway, it was very useful in terms of deciding whether something could easily be a red-herring spare part, or might help something come to life.

[lalatan]

FUTILITARIANISMS is a beaut! Yeah, it was erakis who came up with the list. It was interesting; some of them were eyeopeners, I recall. It's really a shame that all that history from the old forum is blotted out. I just checked the member list for Aussie Mum, my hero when I played 4x4. She's still there but all of her stats got wiped out as if she'd never played. She didn't play much anymore for whatever reason and probably missed the notice about the server migration. Sad, sad

[thinkbig]

I could hardly believe I found PUSILLANIMITIES just now! It's a derivative of 1 of my favorite words, PUSILLANIMOUS, I learned from a word a day calendar 35 yrs ago. This was the first time I've seen it since I've played here. I set a record of 28 pts and, even though I'm playing as thinkbig and it would drop my avg, I just HAD to keep it.

[Spike1007]

Great word! I don't think I've ever found it or any of it's derivatives, although I have heard it before. I have to say though, that you probably don't have to worry about your average. I'm more or less stuck between you (as lalatan) & Dasan, and I don't see that changing. I found UNIFORMITARIANIST earlier today (for 32 points), but found UNIFORMITARIAN earlier on the board or only 20. I liked them both, so I took them, although it took down my average. I go up & down.

[DrPlacebo]

I love FUTILITARIANISMS!

My absolute favorite from before is still probably PROCRUSTEAN, which started the thread.

Also, just found today: CRIMINY!

[bwt1213]

I was astonished today when "silken" was not accepted. I was sure I must have typed it incorrectly. Two more attempts, and no joy. Apparently, "silken" is not in the dictionary for some reason. If you haven't seen it before, it means: "having the qualities of silk; smooth, soft, sheerness, or delicacy". That's MY definition, not copied from anywhere (in case it is not precisely correct, no one else is to blame).

[DrPlacebo]

Oh, another repeat of a word I found and posted on the old forum: TORDION/TORDIONS. (Thank you, Peter Warlock!)

I'm still hoping to find BRANSLES and MATTACHINS at some point.

[Spike1007]

A few days ago I found GOTTERDAMMERUNGS. I knew it was German & had something to do with Wagner. I didn't think it was an English word, but I couldn't imagine that it showed up in there by accident.

[crazykate]

A few days ago I found GOTTERDAMMERUNGS. I knew it was German & had something to do with Wagner. I didn't think it was an English word, but I couldn't imagine that it showed up in there by accident.

Amazing! German is my native language, but I can say with certainty that I wouldn't have found that word on a board. I often miss words with a German base, actually, because my mind dismissed German syllables as irrelevant in this game.
Also, without the umlauts and with the plural -S, the word looks very different to what I'm used to. My mind sort of did a double-take when reading it here because it looked so unfamiliar. (The pronunciation would be wrong without the umlauts, too.) I'm sure I wouldn't have recognised it on the board.
Well done to you for finding it!

[Spike1007]

kate, thanks! I guess on its way into English & its ability to be pluralized with the -S, it lost its umlauts. Anyway, I'd never seen it before, but as long as it was there, I thought I'd try the plural (the English way). It makes me wonder whatever else they might be hiding here.

I've taken some German (although I'm a long way from being fluent, or even able to put together a couple of coherent sentences). Anyway, the path some German words & names take into English puzzles me. Of course, without umlauts, we make do by adding an E after an umlauted O (if that's a word at all), and then pronouncing the result as a long A. (I doubt if that applies to GOTTERDAMMERUNG. We didn't add the Es, and I assume that we just pronounce the vowels the English way.)

[lalatan]

That was a great find, Spike! I would've never even considered stringing those characters together.

I found another new favorite word this week: LONGHEADEDNESSES for 30 pts & 2 records. At first I thought it might describe head binding or even maybe the alien in the movie of the same name. But it is actually the quality of having unusual foresight.

kate: I saw cobalt on a board this week and checked right away if it flowed into -ite. It did and there it was: SPHAEROCOBALTITE for 30 pts and 2 records. Thanks.