Wonderous and silly things

[leabhar]

I wonder why in one game the word "sero" is accepted and in another not. I have that happen before and for a long time I doubted myself, but I wrote it down and now know for sure that some words are acctepted in one game, but not in the other.

On a lighter tone: I am not a native speaker and my native language is Dutch. So I did two games today and much to my surprise (and laughter) I found three Dutch words (which of course were not valid, but it was just funny to see THOSE words there in two consecutive games: kloten, kloot and bips.
For those curious, Google translate helps

[JJBeanie]

leabhar, that's funny! After translating kloten and kloot, I was a bit tentative about translating bips, lol.


English is my first language and being from Australia, we have a few common words that I'm often the first to find in a game. I don't know why, but that makes me smile. It's like they're my little edge in the game (and goodness knows I need an edge ) Some of those words are, "servo", "ambo", "arvo" and "nutso". For those who don't know:

servo = service/petrol station
ambo = ambulance, ambulance officer or paramedic
arvo = afternoon
nutso = crazy

They might have other "proper" definitions, but that's how we use them in Australia

[floppers]

Hoon, and Hoons, JJ....friends in the constabulary call them "Hoon Laws", the deliberate loss of traction does not stop me from having some sympathy for parents having their cars impounded, after having loaned (or being unlucky enough to have the last car in the driveway) to their offspring.

There is a least one word that I find, but don't submit, that I hope has another meaning in proper English, if it is from our historical use, it should be removed from any and every dictionary.

[DonGuy47]

Teehee: best word "sproutings", by veganMASTER

[DrPlacebo]

leabhar, that's funny! After translating kloten and kloot, I was a bit tentative about translating bips, lol.


English is my first language and being from Australia, we have a few common words that I'm often the first to find in a game. I don't know why, but that makes me smile. It's like they're my little edge in the game (and goodness knows I need an edge ) Some of those words are, "servo", "ambo", "arvo" and "nutso". For those who don't know:

servo = service/petrol station
ambo = ambulance, ambulance officer or paramedic
arvo = afternoon
nutso = crazy

They might have other "proper" definitions, but that's how we use them in Australia

Servo has another, much more universal meaning: a motor coupled to a sensor for position feedback. (Short for servomotor.)

[bwt1213]

I remember hearing the term "nutso" back in the fifties in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (a desolate location rather like Maine, except rockier, colder, and snowier and with fewer people and fresh water instead of salt). We were often colder than whatever was reported as the nation's "cold spot" for the day, but there were never any official temperatures for Ishpeming or that general area, and no official measurements for the 200+ inches of snow every year (often enough, more than 300). Most years, the snow was gone by the time summer vacation (mosquito season) began, but one year it was still there when the first snowstorm of the new winter hit -- just after Labor Day. I'd tell you all the neat words we used, but I'm sure they're not in the dictionary. "Panky" snow, for example; hit it with the back of a metal shovel and it is just warm and wet enough to make a "pank" sound. So cold that water vapor condensed out of the atmosphere and fell as large clumps almost like snowflakes except that they were teacup-sized clumps and not flakes. Afterward, the sky wasn't blue so much as it was purple. Often, the inhabited areas of Alaska were warmer. All you Aussies, baking in your summer heat -- does this make you feel better?

[rosedraws]

Not to get political, but the word "sedition" came up in 2 out of 5 games I played yesterday.

[dannyb]

Not wonderful, but definitely silly: I have had this OCD like compulsion that I can't "drop" a game unless I have scored at least 300 points. There have been some crazy last few second flurries. This habit has probably cost my scoring average several points each month. (The tough ones are when I finally cross the 300 point mark and the game times out before I can "drop" it.) Yesterday, for the first time, I looked at my score 268 points with 12 seconds to go and I "dropped" the game. It felt surprisingly good. I hope I can do that from now on.

[sadied]

I wonder why in one game the word "sero" is accepted and in another not. I have that happen before and for a long time I doubted myself, but I wrote it down and now know for sure that some words are acctepted in one game, but not in the other.

On a lighter tone: I am not a native speaker and my native language is Dutch. So I did two games today and much to my surprise (and laughter) I found three Dutch words (which of course were not valid, but it was just funny to see THOSE words there in two consecutive games: kloten, kloot and bips.
For those curious, Google translate helps

Both of my parents were born in the Netherlands, and although I grew up in Canada, Dutch traditions plus a few Dutch words were common in my childhood. Typical of kids, the first things we picked up were obscenties. And the first two words in your list were among them! I'm now making an effort to truly learn Dutch via DuoLingo but I'm fairly confident those gems won't pop up LOL!

I think it's impressive that you're playing word games in your second (or third or fourth) language. Well done!

[leabhar]

Both of my parents were born in the Netherlands, and although I grew up in Canada, Dutch traditions plus a few Dutch words were common in my childhood. Typical of kids, the first things we picked up were obscenties. And the first two words in your list were among them! I'm now making an effort to truly learn Dutch via DuoLingo but I'm fairly confident those gems won't pop up LOL!

I think it's impressive that you're playing word games in your second (or third or fourth) language. Well done!

Thank you. I use Duolingo as well to brush up on my languages. English is my second language: my husband hails from South Dakota. It is funny how many foreign words pop up in here and sometimes have a complete different meaning. Most of the time I can find the smaller words in the heavily played boards that I know from other languages. As for Dutch swear words: there will be a few available on certain Dutch sites on Facebook

[Brisul]

Not wonderful, but definitely silly: I have had this OCD like compulsion that I can't "drop" a game unless I have scored at least 300 points. There have been some crazy last few second flurries. This habit has probably cost my scoring average several points each month. (The tough ones are when I finally cross the 300 point mark and the game times out before I can "drop" it.) Yesterday, for the first time, I looked at my score 268 points with 12 seconds to go and I "dropped" the game. It felt surprisingly good. I hope I can do that from now on.

I'm the same way a lot of times. In the 5X5 games, I like to at least hit 500. This month though, I was dumping out early on games where it was obvious early on that I was not going to get anywhere...even on boards where, by the overall word count, I SHOULD have. All that aside, I played enough games to qualify this month for the first time in two or three months

[bwt1213]

I don't dump many games any more, and I'm less picky than I was about the ones I like to play, so my per-game average on the 5x5 took a hit. I dump now if I'm called away from the game or get a phone call. But it is nice to be able to say: "gee, too bad. I got only X on that one" instead of getting upset over what is, after all, just a game.

[Brisul]

I don't dump many games any more, and I'm less picky than I was about the ones I like to play, so my per-game average on the 5x5 took a hit. I dump now if I'm called away from the game or get a phone call. But it is nice to be able to say: "gee, too bad. I got only X on that one" instead of getting upset over what is, after all, just a game.

I'm not going for the super high scores I was aiming for during the past couple of months because I'm just not fast enough to be a 1000+ point per game player and do it over 51 or more games per month like the super star players here do. But, I'm trying to raise my career average which is still currently under 900. It will be pretty neat to get it up over 900 on a personal level.

[bwt1213]

I don't know if this is more silly than wonderous, but I looked at my keyboard of my three-year-old laptop and realized that some of the keys have basically no markings on them any more. The "a" key has a tiny speck about the size of a dust particle on it. The "e" and "s" keys are completely bare of any markings whatever. Part of the "c" key is missing paint near the top, so the upper right of the "c" has worn down to look a little like a sideways "u". About half the upper part of the "N" is gone. None of the other keys show any signs of wear whatever. When I was a far younger lad, I played the piano a lot and loved to play loud -- think Rachmaninoff rather than Chopin, though I confess I loved Bach and Beethoven. When I was in the Army and had to type as part of my job, all the typewriters were manual, most with bent keyboards from years of relentless hammering. And typing in subzero weather with no heat pretty much forced me to hit the keys hard to transfer any ink from the ribbon to the paper. I learned the habit of just beating on the keyboard, and it's hard to break it. But I find it hard to explain the peculiar pattern of wear. Any ideas?

[floppers]

Defininitely qualifies as wonderous, but not so silly. A, E and S are so frequently used in the English (and American) language, not so sure about the c and the n (however, I have used the "n" ten times using only one full stop (thats "period" in American), the "c" not so much). I'm a soft touch, typing and speaking, (except when I'm coaching), but I know that the Father of my children implies intent and passion in his keystrokes. I'm hoping that we can all recognise, particularly as we live in a temperate climate in Australia, that I find that more silly than wonderous.

I'm loving that you are more than a Rachmaninoff, than a Chopin, even though there is an equal use of "n" and "c" in both....