Facebook Word Puzzles-201-250

218-Name these anagrammatized musicians: oral sex-sectarians-Presbyterians

219-What do these words have in common? pedigree-helicopter-Alcatraz

220-What do these words have in common? aileron-limousine-chassis-detente

221-What do these words have in common? lord-lady-companion

222-What do these words have in common? history-geography-gymnasium-mathematics-cataclysm

223-Who is this musician/actor? “I'm a jerk, but listen.”

224-Name a word of at least 20 letters that doesn't have an “e.”

225-What do these words have in common? ombudsman-tungsten-aquavit

226-Name a word of at least 20 letters that doesn't have an “i.”

227-What do these words have in common? hippopotamus-chagrin-curtail

228-What do these words have in common? cole slaw-cookie-Santa Claus

229-Name these Jan 1 babies- debunked rum(philosopher) free storm(author) heape dmeat(director)

230-Decipher this country - steamier turban idea

231-Aside from starting with m what do Madras/Manila/Micronesia/Minnesota/Minsk-have in common

232-Decipher these baseballers- loaners-tragedy-alkaline-versatile-Laetrile

233-Name these actors - cherimoya-truisms-grainery

234-Name a word of at least 20 letters that doesn't have an “a.”

235-Name a word of at least 20 letters that doesn't have an “o.”

236-Name a volcano that is found in Vietnam?

237-Decipher these actors: semolina-bludgeon-hominal

238-Decipher these musicians: waterfalls-narcoleptic-retrogradely

239-What do these words have in common? feisty-fizzle-petard-partridge

240-What do these words have in common? penicillin-orchid-testify

241-Decipher these musicians : treescape-reenabled-oscillates-gleaner

242-What do these words have in common? hysterical-vanilla-exuberant

243-What do these words have in common? caucus-tuxedo-squash

244-Decipher these actors: seamed-streamingly-truisms

245 Decipher these NFLers : nickered-blanketers-mordantly

246-Decipher these “antigrams.” nice love-mad policy- no moon starers- untied

247-What do these words have in common? pygmy-pleurisy-gargoyle

248-What director's name is anagram to “On set,scream sir.”

249-What do these words have in common? bowel-sycophant-bupkes

250-Macaque &quagga are 2 “odd” animals with at least 6 letters. Name one with 8.

Blackmailing the Blackmailers

(This article appeared in the January Lexpert under the title Blackmailing the Blackmailers).

Are the original blackmailers being blackmailed?

By

Howard Richler

On August 21, 2012 the headline in The Scotsman read, Scottish independence; Navy frigate contract will be held after UK split vote.This story related how lucrative contracts to build the next generation of Royal Navy frigates would only be announced after the Scottish referendum on independence scheduled for autumn 2014. Not surprisingly, this announcement elicited this response from an irate reader: “So now the bastards are trying blackmail.” 'Twas not the first time the charge of blackmail has been levied against 10 Downing Street. In October 2011, Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney averred that Scots “should be able to take our decisions without the financial blackmail of the U.K. Government.”

These two comments are etymologically ironic because the original blackmailers were Scots. The first definition of blackmail in the OED states, “A tribute due to farmers in Scotland.. by freebooting Scottish chiefs in return for protection or immunity from plunder.” The “mail” part of blackmail derives from a Scottish word meaning “rent.” The “black” part of the equation comes not only from the age-old association of black with evil but also from the fact that the tribute paid to the extortionists came in the form of cattle, known as “black mail” as opposed to coins known as “white mail.” In fact, in modern Scotland, “mailer” remains a term for a tenant farmer.

Thankfully, the Scots have given us other words aside from blackmail. If your favourite slogan is “Make love - not war” you are etymologically off base. The word slogan comes from the Scottish Gaelic sluagh for “army” or “multitude” and ghairm for “shout” and originally referred to a war cry of the old Scottish Highland clans in the 16^th century that usually consisted of a personal surname or of a gathering place. Originally, in Scottish English, it appeared as slughorne, sloghorne and slugurn and its modern spelling surfaced only in the 17^th century. Its sense became generalized in the early 18^th century to refer to a distinctive cry or phrase of any person or group of people. By 1859, Thomas Macaulay was using “slogan” in its modern meaning when he says in his History of England, “The popular slogans on both sides were indefatigably repeated.”

Along with the two above, there is a whole host of words that have Celtic origins and it is impossible to say with great accuracy whether the word originated in Scotland or in another part of the ancient Celtic world. For example, in Scottish Gaelic and Irish the word brogue referred to a shoe or sandal. When the word made its English debut in the 16^th century it referred to a rudimentary shoe made of untanned leather worn by inhabitants of the Scottish highlands and Ireland.Today it designates a smartleather shoe with tooling patterns in the leather. Similarly, the word galore is also Celtic in origin; in Scottish Gaelic and Irish it meant “sufficient.” From here it was hardly a large leap when it appeared in English in the late 17^th century with the sense of “abundant.”

Despite its assocaition with the very English Shakespeare, another word that has a Celtic lineage is “bard.” The OED tells us that it originally referred to an “ancient Celtic order of minstrel-poets, whose primary function appears to have been to compose and sing (usually to the harp) verses celebrating the achievements of chiefs and warriors, and who committed to verse historical and traditional facts, religious precepts, laws, genealogies, etc.” Bard still remains the word for “poet” in modern Celtic languages.

Notwithstanding the etymologies already expalined, there are suggestions that the Celtic languages of Roman Britain had hardly any influence on the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. For example, linguist David Crystal claims in The English Language, “Only a handful of Celtic words came into English at the time such as crag,.. brock (badger) and tor (peak).”

Linguist Loreto Todd, however, believes that the number of Celtic words in English is underrepresented. According to Todd, the view that Anglo-Saxons borrowed few Celtic words is “particularly strange if we remember that few of the Germanic invaders would have brought wives to England with them. We are asked to accept that Celtic-speaking mothers passed on only Anglo-Saxon and perhaps Latin words to their children.” She also points out that many Celtic words are quite similar to English words. “Three” in Irish is tri, “boat “ is bad, and cat is rendered the same in Irish. Therefore, these words could just as easily be from the Celtic languages as from Anglo-Saxon. The point here is that we are dealing with a common linguistic occurrence of multiple etymologies where one can’t really exclude the etymological contribution of a particular language.

In any case to commemorate Robert Burns Day on January 25^th, I propose we raise our glasses not only to the fine single malts the Scots have distilled but also to the colourful words they've contributed to the English language.

hrichler@gmail.com

Howard's book from Happy to Homosexual and other mysterious semantic shifts will be published next spring.

Crikey! I'm gobsmacked! Bespoke crosses the pond

Crikey! I'm gobsmacked! “Bespoke” crosses the pond.

                                       by

                           Howard Richler

Some years ago while on a trip to England, I encountered some words and expressions that made me realize the importance of being bilingual in my mother tongue. For example, I asked someone in London where I could find an ATM. She looked nonplussed but her companion translated, “he means a “hole-in-the-wall.” Also, I discovered that in some English locales a speed bump is referred to as a “sleeping policeman” and that the British enjoy a bevy of insulting terms for people such as “swot” (boring, studious student), “chav”(bad-mannered person), “anorak”(anal-retentive person) and “poncey” (effeminate) that have limited currency on this side of the Atlantic. I also recall being perplexed upon seeing a sign announcing “bespoke industrial units” and another advertising “bespoke shoes.” I got a clearer idea of the term when I saw yet another sign that read “bespoke tailors.”

“Bespoke,” however, is now ubiquitous in North America. For example, on November 7^th we read in the National Post that “Sean Connery's Bond was the Errol Flynn of the swinging '60s, a dapper swashbuckling Saville Row type in bespoke Turnbull & Asser shirts.” Often, the usage transcends the boundary of Saville Row as in the following from the Globe and Mail: “Luxury travel lovers flocked to the Spoke Club for an intimate event with Mr. & Mrs Smith, a bespoke booking service for custom travel property.”

“Bespoke” has also taken the USA by storm. In the New York city area there are over twenty “bespoke” companies including “Bespoke Surgical,” “Bespoke Barber Shop,” and at least one store simply called “Bespoke.” Also, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists over 40 active registrations and applications for “bespoke” brand names with the majority of the patents being filed in the past two years. If you have a USA bespoke product or service to offer - act quickly. One person wanted to use Bespoke.com as their web address but as this belonged to Bespoke Software, he had to settle for Bespoke Innovations.

The OED defines bespoke as “ordered to be made, as distinguished from READY-MADE”; also said of a tradesman who makes goods to order.” Strangely, the word's first citation in 1755 refers to a play but by the middle of the 19^th century the word was most often employed in the shoemaking trade to refer to custom shoes. An 1866 citation from Chamber’s Encyclopedia says that “the shoe-making tradition is divided into two departments-the bespoke and the ready-made or safe business.” The tailoring industry adopted the word to describe the cloth customers select in advance for their suits. The cloth thus became “spoken for” or “bespoke.”

Bespoke long ago shed its tailoring sense in the UK and on my aforementioned jaunt I recall seeing an unlikely sign in Yorkshire advertising “bespoke fish & chips.” However, in North America the same process of applying the term to a variety of sundry products has occurred This can be verified by googling “bespoke tricycles,” “bespoke underwear” “bespoke toilet seats” “bespoke condoms” and “bespoke legal advice.” So far, there isn't a listing for “bespoke criminals.”

So why has “bespoke” become such as a popular marketing word? Justin Watters, the co-founder of the Bespoke Investment Group LLC based in Harrison, New York says “Like a bespoke tailor investors measure risk tolerance needs and outlook in order to develop a strategy that fits their unique needs.” According to Mark-Evan Blackman, a professor at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, “bespoke has.. started seeping into our consciousness as a term for our gold standard, as a male equivalent of couture.” So, it would seem “bespoke” has become a marketing buzzword to convey the superiority of a product or service you are offering. I suppose that the term “custom” has become so commonplace that it is often replaced by the fresher “bespoke” to entice customers.

Soon, no doubt, the revived “bespoke” will lose its freshness; overuse will make everyone jaded as to what it signifies and marketeers will have to find another high-faluting word to bamboozle consumers.

Howard Richler's bespoke book From Happy to Homosexual and other mysterious semantic shifts will be published by Ronsdale Press next spring.

hrichler@gmail.com

Saving Endangered Languages

(This article first appeared in the Nov/Dec 2012 edition of the  legal magazine Lexpert under the title :When We Lose a Language).

What we lose when we lose a language

by

Howard Richler

The adjective “endangered” is usually twinned with the noun “species” as the onslaught of civilization has brought about a diminution in the planet's biodiversity.

But not only are many species on the verge of extinction, many languages are teetering towards oblivion. Of the approximately 7000 languages spoken on our planet, it is estimated that anywhere from 50% to 90% will not survive the end of the century. So whereas the largest 80 to 100 languages in the world such as English, Chinese, Urdu and French are spoken by 4.5 billion people, there are around 3500 languages whose total number of speakers equals no more than ten million; an average of less than 3000 speakers each. Generally speaking a language is regarded as secure if it has over 100,000 speakers. However, many of the languages spoken today are on the abyss of extinction having fewer than 100 speakers.

Not surprisingly, many of the native languages in Canada fall into the endangered camp. Only Cree, Ojibway ans Inuktikut are regarded as relatively secure. In many of the 53 Canadian aboriginal languages, more than half of the population can't communicate at all in their mother tongue and fluency declines drastically among the youth of the tribe. Hilda Nicholson, a spokesperson for the Mohawk band of Kahnawake, told me that the fluency rate in the 65 year and older category was around 75%, but in the 6-15 age group, this rate drops to under 20% So, there is a clear sign when a language is in danger. Parents stop teaching it to children and children stop wanting to learn the language of their ancestors. Unfortunately, the obvious role of schools is limited no matter how great the effort of the school program, the ultimate fate of the language is determined by whether it is used on a daily basis in casual conversation.

So, why should we care? Several things are lost when we lose languages. First, we lose cultural knowledge. Since there are around only 200 written languages, when a non-written language vanishes we lose the beliefs and stories that may provide insights into our humanity. These oral histories could possibly inspire us by providing a new way to perceive the world.

More concretely, the loss of languages is also a loss for science because a language represents an adaptive technology. For example, the Inuit language possesses approximately 100 words for sea ice and this instructs one about complexities not generally known in other languages. When it comes to knowledge about bees we probably have much to learn from the Kayapo language of Brazil. Its apian vocabulary contains such domains as flight patterns, bee odour, quantity and quality of honey, and the edibility of larva. According to Mark Pagel, a biomathematician at Oxford, different languages have “particular habits of mind” and learning a specific language can possibly alter the brain. For example, Pagel interprets the inability of Japanese adults to differentiate between “la” and “ra” sounds as meaning that on a physiological level there may be brain distinctions based on language.

The difference, however, between Japanese and English pales compared to some nuances we find in other languages. For example, it was once assumed that certain sentence structures were not possible. So while one can say “I will eat this kangaroo” it was believed that in no langauge would some rational person utter “This will eat kangaroo I.” But then linguists “discovered” the Waripiri of the Australian Outback. Not only do tribesmen state in Waripiri, “This will eat kangaroo I.” They also say “Kangaroo will this eat I” and “Eat will kangaroo this I.” By observing which rules hold and which do not (e.g., “will” always comes in the second position in the sentence), linguists have been better able to set parameters for universal grammar. But in order to test and refine universal grammar, linguists require a myriad of examples from the grammars of diverse languages. Unfortunately, until recently the data base has been shrinking drastically.

“Until recently” is used in the last sentence because hope is on the horizon. This past June Google introduced the “Endangered Language Project,” (ELP) a website that allows people and organizations involved in language preservation to find and share the most current and comprehensive information about endangered languages. With ELP, Google provides its technology and vast storage capacity to create a headquarters where data can be shared in a variety of forms, such as text, audio and video files. Although Google launched this endeavour it will shortly pass the gauntlet over to these two organizations involved in the field of language preservation: The First Peoples' Cultural Council based in Brentwood Bay. B.C. and the Institute for Language Information and Technology at East Michigan University.

hrichler@gmail.com

Howard's next book From Happy to Homosexual and other mysterious semantic shifts will be published next Spring.

Facebook Word Quizzes-150-200

150-What musician's name is an anagram to retrogradely?

151-What do these words have in common? shingle-potash-himself-manger

152-What do these words have in common? braises-mails-mason-rains-resign-super

153-What do these words have in common? landing-denser-topic-sales

154- Name the writer whose name is an anagram to “I'll make a wise phrase.”

155-Name the actor whose name is an anagram to “I value nicer role.”

156- Name 2 words that rhyme with each other that are synonyms with 2 other words that rhyme with each

157-Name 3 words that have 4 letter consecutive strings.

158-Name a US city of 6 letters that spells another word when reversed.

159-I’m where yester follows today and tomo is in the middle. What am I?

160-Name a phrase that features this letter string. “ouea.”

161-What do these words have in common? carnal-snore-tonic

162-What pro sports teams are an amalgam of these anagrams? avenged sills, unhinged paste, sparser pucks, & salon misprints

163-What do these words have in common? jungle-shampoo-juggnaut-thug

164-What do these words have in common? does-number-unionized

165-What do these words have in common? blond-nuthouse-kiln

166- What US capital's last 2 letters are the same as the state's abbreviation?

167-What do these words have in common? dottier-caption-Tory

168-Name the person whose name is featured in these 2 anagrams. hated for ill +mother-in-law
169-What is distinctive about this sentence?-If you want to know what Barack Obama wants to do to our country, why don’t you just ask John McCain, Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin or (God forbid) Mitt?
170-What makes this sentence distinctive?- A cockamamie Commie mocks a gay, sagacious Eskimo.

171-What makes these sentences distinctive? Sununu purports to trust Proust/Support our troops/Not on your own

172-What do these words have in common? lust-election-Lenin-alar

173-What do these words have in common? Graceland-Indonesia-Armenia

174-Presidential anagrams-Decipher the following: He bugs gore- See a thing go wrong-Govern

clever lad-He did view the war doings-Truth searcher-Rash army runt

175-Presidential anagram-Decipher the following:A barbarian smoked teacups

176-What do these words have in common? scornful-reappearance-appraising-fortunately

177-What do these words have in common? apple-compute-apish-whip

178 – Decipher the following Hill

John

Mass

179-What do these words have in common? catamaran, mulligatawny, pariah

180-Name a world capital that is an anagram to an insect.

181-What do these words have in common? anime-nominates

182What do these words have in common? cherries, dessert, salad, salmon, soup (aside from being foods)

183-What cities are these words letter banks to? antic-gouda-car-man T

184-Name a word shortened in front and on back.

185-Name a city of at least 10 letters comprised only of odd letters. e.g., a=1 c=3 e=5

186-What do these words have in common? -banter-mob-sham-snob-talented

187-What do these words have in common? assassination-bloodstained -sanctimonious-scuffle

188-Name a verb derived from a city

189-Name two words pronounced the same that share no letters.

190-Name a 6 letter word composed of only 2 letters in the alphabet.

191-What do these surnames have in common? Rivkin, Dworkin, Malkov

192-What do these words have in common? aback,grackle, parks

193-What do these words have in common? begonia, chauvinist, guillotine,

194-What do these words have in common? venison, bacon, sausage, poultry, sole

195-What do these words have in common? tangerine-manger -raincoat

196-Name acity in the Middle East that is an anagram to a resident of a Middle East country.

197-Name a singer whose name is an anagram to urodele-(type of amphibian)

198-Name an actor whose name is an anagran to Energy cool ego

199 -What do these words have in common? cravat, bungalow, suede, jeans, denim

200-What do these words have in common? boycott-dunce-maverick

SKUNKED WORDS

(This article first appeared in the Nov 2012 Senior Times.)

There's a skunk's aroma wafting through many English words

by

Howard Richler

If a reader peruses this article should I be A)disinterested or B)nonplussed? It totally depends on the meaning abscribed to the three italicized words. Let me explain.

Traditionally, “disinterested,” meant impartial but nowadays the vast majority of people use it to mean “not interested.” I regret this modern usage because an important distinction is being lost and would hope that hockey referees are disinterested in the traditional rather than the new sense. “Nonplussed,” similarly has gone from meaning “bewildered” to “unfazed.” This was the sense Barack Obama used the word when he stated last year, “I've been really happy by how nonplussed they've {his daughters} been” by media scrutiny. Also, while the original 15^th century meaning of “peruse” was “examine carefully,” by the 16^th century it was often used merely as a synonym for “read.”

This also asks the question, (please don't resort to begging questions ) how long do we insist that the older meanings should prevail?

Truth be told, there is no simple answer because there is no definitive arbiter on what qualifies as proper English. According to Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and other American dictionaries, many new meanings are acceptable. For example, “peruse” can mean not only to “examine carefully” but to “read over in a casual manner”; “disinterested” can mean “not interested” as well as “impartial”; and “enormity” can mean the same as “enormousness.” On the other hand, some dictionaries and many learned usage commentators regard these positions as linguistic heresy.

Lexicographer Bryan Garner in Garner's Modern American Usage states that “when a word undergoes a marked change from one use to another – a phase that might take ten years or a hundred – it's likely to be the subject of dispute.” He adds that “a word is most hotly disputed in the middle of the process: any use of it is likely to distract some readers.” He characterizes these disputed words as “skunked” and therefore best avoided. Hence, although there might be some ancient pedant who believes that “egregious” should still mean remarkably good as it literally means in Latin, “above the flock,” the fact remains that it has not been used in a positive sense since 1845 and will not make the “skunked” list.

The reality, of what qualifies as a “skunked” word is not as clear-cut as Garner pretends.

Can anyone say definitively when a word has been “skunked”? Garner includes in his list of skunked words, “decimate” and “hopefully” whereas I, and many others, regard the use of “decimate” to mean “kill one-tenth” and the exclusive use of “hopefully” to mean only “in a hopeful manner” and not “one hopes,” or “it is to be hoped,” to be hopelessly moribund. Some prescriptive language commentators decry the use of “jejune” to mean “childish” and point out that change in meaning stemmed from the mistaken belief that the word stemmed from the French word for “young” jeune and the Latin juvenus. Notwithstanding this mistaken belief, dictionaries accept “childish” as one of the meanings of “jejune.” Similarly, some language purists argue that the word “dilemma'' should only be used to refer to a choice between two unpleasant alternatives and not a plight or predicament, but most dictionaries allow for this latter sense.

Also, we must acknowledge that some usages that might not be acceptable in British English are acceptable in North American English. Examples of such are the verbs “careen” and “aggravate.” The former (notwithstanding that it should be “career”) is common in North America English just as using aggravate to mean “annoy” is well established in both Canada and the USA. Relative to the use of aggravate to mean “annoy,” Wynford Hicks advises in Quite Literally, “Use with care since purists disapprove of the second {annoy} usage.” The reality, however, is that this usage has been entrenched in North America for many decades.

In any case, I'm content as long as you're not disinterested in this article in the modern sense.

hrichler@gmail.com

Facebook Quizzzes 101-150

Facebook Quizzes-101-150

101-What do these words have in common?-job, nice, polish, reading, tangier

102-What do these words have in common?-coach, goulash, hussar, paprika

103-What tennis player's names are anagrams to “nail” & “grass an aide”?

104-Name a city in N. Africa that is an anagram for a nickname for a US state.

105- What tennis player's name is an anagram to “Me, thin man”?

106-What do these words have in common? amok,bamboo,compound

107-What tennis player's name is an anagram to “Hi June tennis”?

108-What do these words have in common? abrade,Aryans, glanced, Italian, Rwandan pearly

109-Name a tennis player whose name is an anagram to a former QB.

110-Name a color that is an anagram to an animal.

111-Name a former US Open champion whose name is comprised only of 1 pt letters in Scrabble.

112-Name a word of at least 10 letters comprised only of letters in first half of alphabet.

113-Name 2 tennis players whose surnames are palindromes.

114-Name a food of 7letters made up of letters in the first half of the alphabet.

115-Name a former tennis champion whose name featured only 1 vowel.

116-Name a 7 lettered word with 5 vowels.

117-What tennis player's name is an anagram to “server itch”?

118-What do these words have in common?escalator thermos aspirin plexiglass zipper t

119-What do these words have in common? infest-flow-barfed--wafer-confer

120-Name 2 animals of at least 6 letters comprised of only odd letters in the alphabet . e.g. A=1 C=3

121-What former political leader's name is an anagram to “That great charmer”? -

122- What do these words have in common?-abducted bewilder crashing feverish

123-What is the only number in reverse alpabetical order?

124- Name a singer whose name is an anagram to “Presbyterians”

125-Name cities that feature only oe repeating vowel for a. e.i. O & u

126-What do these surnames have in common? Blanchard-Bouchard-Beliveau-Broderick

127-Name a country of at least ten letters where no letters repeat themselves?

128-Name a city in Massachusetts that is an anagram to an animal.

129-Name a country that is an anagram to a dance.

130-Name an Asian city that is an anagram to a part of the body.

131-Name a former political leader whose surname is an anagram to a part of the body.

132-Name a western US city that is an anagram to a nicjkname for a pro sports team.

133- Name a Canadian city other than Toronto where every letter is worth 1 point in Scrabble.

134- Name a European city of 1million where every letter is worth 1 point in Scrabble.

135 – Nme 2 animals of at least 7 letters where every letter is in first half of alphabet.

136-Name a term for an animal of 5 letters where every letter appears in second half of alphabet.

137 -What US city can you make from “law”?

138- Name a car, a tennis player & tree composed only of Roman numerals.

139-Name a Us state & its capital that end in the same 2 letters.

140-Name the husband of a first lady where every letter in name is worth 1 pt in Scrabble.

141-What do all the letters in this sentence have in common?-A big, bad imbecilic bald-headed Black medical academic blackmailed a mild, amicable middle-aged deaf Micmac milkmaid.

142-Name 2 European cities made up only of letters in second half of alphabet.

143-Name a word of at least 5 letters that is a palindrome and made up only of Roman numerals.

144-What geographic significance do the words “nest” and “lions”have?

145- What do these words have in common?--plea-coma-duma , alight

146-What film star's name is an anagram to “So I'm cuter”?

147-What do these words have in common?-plunge,shawarma.college,deliverance

148-What film star's name is an anagram to “costumier”?

149-Name a country that is an anagram of a word that is a synonym to a word that is a homophone to a number.?

150-What musician's name is an anagram to “retrogradely”?