WORDS

                 A Word Challenge

Mrs. Murrow, my second grade teacher, my favorite teacher ever,  was old--or so I thought.  I was seven; she was probably a hundred.  She had white hair and jiggly upper arms and a sense of humor.

"If you can find a word without a vowel in it, I will give you a prize," she said.

So for days and weeks, I tried for the prize.  When some smart second grader came up with "WHY," she said, "Sometimes Y is used as a vowel."

AH, Tricky tricky!

Her challenge obsessed me for weeks and  initiated a lifelong love of words.


                 A Word Game:

In CrossyWord:  If you see a list of seven random letters, it may take a long time to come up with twenty or more words.  But after you get the first word, the letters in the first word will find a place in the next few words.

If you know the first letter is R, and if you know how long the word is, coming up with a word that fits is much easier than if you have no starter letter.  RAID.  REAR.  RADAR.  READY...

Since I know that every syllable must have a vowel, I employ that knowledge to spell possible words. No English speaking human would consider these letters, for example, a viable word:  RYKOVL.

If you know the fourth letter of a five-letter-word is E, and if you have a D or an R, your word is likely to  end with ED or ER--or start with RE or DE.

If the seven letters include an S and an H--you know that many English words begin or end with SH. (Same with C and an H)

Other such rules occur to you as you play....


                    A Word Story:

Last week, Nathan called someone stupid.

"Nathan, don't say that," his mother said.  "Stupid is a bad word."

Elena said, "Stupid is not a bad word!  But I can think of an S-word that is a bad word."

"Sh...." she began....and slowly sounded out "S-H-I-T."

"Where did you hear that word?" her mom asked.

"Self taught!" she said proudly.


                  And now, Lovers of Words, a synchronicity:

Just as I wrote the last word above, I found this "love letter to words" on Brainpickings, written by the brilliant Virginia Woolf!  The audio is followed by a transcript, so you can read along as she speaks.

(I've loved several of Woolf's novels, but this is the first time I've heard her actual speaking voice!)

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/04/29/craftsmanship-virginia-woolf-speaks-1937/