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Reading the Scrabble Dictionary: Week 2

1/16/2014

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PictureAoudad: a wild sheep
Still going strong. This week will be rather succinct and with fewer pictures and commentary than I'd like, as Bennington's winter residency is in full swing, and sleep is essential for sanity.

Week 2 seemed to be filled with strange anti-words, my favorites being antiboss (opposed to bosses) and antiking (a usurping king, which strikes me as odd, since wouldn't an antiboss then be a usurping boss?). I also liked antirock and antiroll. Additionally, although I am predisposed while at residency to pick up on such things, there were many words that pertain to words and language and rhetoric and evil workshop tactics and the consequences of being at a residency. Some examples:

    Analects: selections from a literary work or group of works
    Anaphor: a word or phrase that takes reference from a preceding word or phrase
    Anchress: a female recluse (sometimes, you just need some space after so much socializing)
    Anglice: in readily understood English
    Antihero: a protagonist who is notably lacking in heroic qualities
    Aphasia: the loss of the ability to use words
    Aphesis: the loss of an unstressed vowel from the beginning of a word
    Apocope: an omission of the last sound of a word
    Apodosis: the main clause of a conditional sentence
    Apologue: an allegory
    Apophony: a patterned change in root vowels of verb forms (ablaut)
    Aporia: an expression of doubt for rhetorical effect
    Aphonia: loss of voice

⚛ Units of the Week
    Almud/almude: a Spanish unit of capacity
    Amperage: the strength of an electric current expressed in amperes
    Ampere: a unit of electric current strength
    Amu: a unit of mass
    Angstrom: a unit of length
    Anna: a former coin of India and Pakistan
    Annal: a record of a single year

!!! Words of the Week
    Alky: one who is habitually drunk
    Allonym: the name of one person assumed by another (for the purpose of . . . intrigue?)
    Aloin: a laxative
    Alopecia: baldness
    Ambsace/amesace: bad luck
    Amerce: to punish by imposing an arbitrary fine
    Amrita: a beverage that bestows immortality in Hindu mythology
    Amusia: the inability to recognize musical sounds
    Angakok: an Eskimo medicine man
    Angel: to support financially
    Anguine: resembling a snake
    Ankus: an elephant goad
    Anoopsia: a visual defect
    Anosmia: loss of the sense of smell
    Antiar: an arrow poison
    Anuresis: the inability to urinate
    Apache: a Parisian gangster
    Aphagia: the inability to swallow
    Aquarian: a member of the old sects that used water rather than wine in religious ceremonies

👀 Other Observations
    Algum AND almug mean "A precious wood mentioned in the Bible." Was someone partially dyslexic and it became entrenched?
    Alienage and alienism mean "the state of being foreign" BUT an alienist is someone who treats mental disorders.
    Amygdala is an almond-shaped anatomical part of the brain but amygdule (or amygdale, if you're British) is a small gas bubble in lava—shaped, as you might guess, in the form of an almond.

♡ Favorite Words of the Week
Ambage: a winding path
Ambit: the external boundary of something
Amender: one that improves
Ana: a collection of miscellaneous information about a particular subject (one might say this series does just that)
Anile: resembling an old woman
Anserous: silly
Apetaly: the state of having no petals
Aphotic: lacking light
Appetent: marked by strong desire
Picture
Amole: a plant root used as a substitute for soap.
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