Queen of the Lexeme Age

There are worse things to be hooked on than trikes and words. I’m pretty damned sure of that. Possibly I’ve mentioned that Scrabble and Words with Friends are two of my persistent habits?

Here’s the thing, I feel guilty as all hell when I play words that I don’t normally use or words that I recognize but have never uttered. (gee, Catholic much?) Worse yet, words that I’m not even sure are real but fit the space and will score me a big slice of points.

I feel like I’m cheating, scamming or *gasp* FAKING it!

Below is a collection of some of these guilt inducing morphemes and why I know them:

Words I Didn’t Know Before Reading TBogg

Anhedonia  [an-hee-doh-nee-uh] noun
Psychology - lack of pleasure or of the capacity to experience it.

Acerbicitousness [ a·cer·bic·it·shus·ness]   Adjective/Noun
1. harsh or severe speech in accord with sharp and forthright knowledge.
2. the quality or state of being acerbic -- They experienced the stone acerbicitousness of her position on the matter.

OK, possibly that’s not really a word but it should be! And no I wasn’t able to get past the Scrabble censors with it.

Cat not Qat

Words I Didn’t Know Before Playing Scrabble and Words with Friends (and still feel like I’m cheating when I deploy them)

Suq - souk or suq  [suːk] noun
in Muslim countries, (esp North Africa and the Middle East) an open-air marketplace

Qat or kat [kaht] noun
an evergreen shrub, Catha edulis.  Of Arabia and Africa, the leaves of which are used as a narcotic when chewed or made into a beverage.

Ixia [ik-see-uh] noun
any of various southern African plants of the genus Ixia. Of the iris family, having sword-shaped leaves and showy, ornamental flowers.

ossuary

 

Then there are the words I just pray to Kali are real words because I’ve got no choice but to make them -- they overlap with another word I’ve just GOT to make. And, shockingly, they are real!

Vis [wees; English vis] noun, plural vi·res [wee-reys; English vahy-reez] Show IPA . Latin. strength; force; power.

Who knew? I thought it was an abbreviation for Visio -- the Microsoft diagram app.

Os [os] noun, plural os·sa [os-uh]  Anatomy, Zoology . a bone.

You know -- I get it. Os is the root of ossuary

Ossuary - [osh-oo-er-ee, os-] noun,
a place or receptacle for the bones of the dead.

The Sedlec Ossuary (aka Kostnice Ossuary Beinhaus), known commonly as ‘The Bone Church,’ being the most famous. It’s located in Czech Republic, within the town of Kutná Hora.

Weird, creepy, cool and yeah, I want to visit there.

De [duh; French duh; Spanish de; Portuguese di] preposition
from; of (used in French, Spanish, and Portuguese personal names, originally to indicate place of origin): Comte de Rochambeau; Don Ricardo de Aragón.

Di [dee] preposition
from; of: used in Italian personal names, originally to indicate place of origin: Conte di Savòia.

Okey doke -- nice to know foreign language stuff is permitted on occasion. I’ll have to exploit that more, eh?

XI [zahy, sahy; Greek ksee]
noun, plural xis. the 14th letter of the greek alphabet (Ξ, ξ).

Words I Only Know Because I’m So Keen on Ceramic Chemistry and painting...and shit

Kyanite  [kahy-uh-nahyt] - noun - a mineral, aluminum silicate, Al 2  SiO 5  , occurring in blue or greenish bladed triclinic crystals, used as a refractory.

Frit - noun - the mixture of silica and fluxes which is fused at high temperature to make glass.
a calcined and pulverized mixture similar to frit, used to make soft-paste porcelain or ceramic glazes.

Flux - Is any ingredient that is used to help melt the glaze or to lower the temperature that the glaze will melt at.

Cadmium - Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury.

 Hi, my name is Donna and I'm on a first name basis with Merriam Webster.