Once upon a time, I learned that seeing -fer or -phor in a word means ‘to carry or bear.’ I love it a lot, I made a great comic about it, everybody’s happy. Yesterday I read Chapter 1 for my Syntax class, and it mentions the term anaphora. Examples of anaphors are himself, herself, itself, and themselves. Hmmm, said the brain. This term carries something, but what does ‘ana’ mean? At first I thought it was a simple negator like ‘a-‘ as in atypical, but no! [and then suddenly…]
October 20, 2011
in anagram,english,Etymology,greek,insignificant linguistics mystery,University of York,Words & Origins
Hey!
Every Wednesday morning starting around 9:30am, @Wordnik gives out clues for a secret word on wordnik.com that has a pronounciation by “hap_e_wordnik” (see screen shot below). They give out 3 or 4 clues, each of which describes a different definition that the uncommon or obsolete word has. As soon as someone gets the right word, the game ends. If no one gets it by the end of the clues, they give a *BONUS CLUE* which usually has quotations around letters, meaning the word is an anagram of those letters.
[and then suddenly…]
March 16, 2011
in anagram,champion,elsewhere,secret word,winner,wordnik,Words & Origins
Every day when I look at the glowing red sign at the front of the bus I think, “If there was an extra ‘e’ on that sign, that would anagram to ‘Sequestered Pot.'”
April 16, 2010
in anagram,Autobiographical,best post ever,bus,FACT,public transit,word games,Words & Origins
