Lettergirl

Trivia Quiz

2009-07-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

Fun World Trivia Questions and Facts
Fun world trivia questions and facts with answers.

What was an official language in 87 nations and territories, by 1994?
A: English.

What's the third-largest continent in square miles?
A: North America.

What is the capital of Kuwait?
A: Kuwait City. World trivia questions.

"What town name did residents of a Florida retirement community switch to because they found Sunset Depressing?
A: Sunrise.

What's the second most populous continent?
A: Europe.

What finally went out of fashion in ancient Rome, prompting people to begin wearing short pants called feminalia?
A: The Toga.

What southwestern U.S. state has the highest percentage of non-English speakers?
A: New Mexico.

What M-word did Texas citizens choose as a town name that would "attract" folks?
A: Magnet.

What state leads the U.S. with 15 tons of solid waste per citizen each year?
A: California.

Which is further from the equator, Tasmania, Tanzania, or Transylvania?
A: Transylvania.

What eastern town is home for a service academy and the U.S. Sliver Depository?
A: West Point.

What's the University of Paris more commonly called?
A: The Sorbonne.

What two French cities are connected by the planet's fastest passenger train?
A: Paris and Lyons.

What religion has the most adherent, Buddhism, Christianity or Islam?
A; Christianity.

What U.S. state boasts a town called Captain Cook?
A: Hawaii.

What's the Greek name for hell?
A: Hades.

What European country does Aruba maintain the strongest ties to?
A: The Netherlands.

What do the Chinese call kwai-tsze, or "quick little fellows"?
A: Chopsticks.

What European country uses its Latin name, Helvetia, on its stamps?
A: Switzerland.

What British university boasts and endowment called the Jackie Mason Lectureship in Contemporary Judaism?
A: Oxford.

What country did Greek historian Herodotus dub "the gift of the Nile"?
A: Egypt.

What country is only bordered by Spain?
A: Portugal.

What's the flattest U.S. state?
A: Florida.

What U.S. state, after much debate, made the bizcochito the official state cookie?
A: New Mexico.

What Australian city boasts the largest Greek population in the world outside of Greece?
A: Melbourne.

What U.S. state boasts the towns of Gulf Stream, Lakebreeze and Frostproof?
A: Florida.

What country has bee the planet's largest aid donor since 1991?
A: Japan.

What island nation is a must for anyone wishing to see 40 species of lemours?
A: Madagascar.

What country is almost twice as large as either the U.S. or China?
A: Russia.

What South Asian city is the planet's biggest feature film producer?
A: Bombay.

How many Great Lakes do not border Michigan?
A: One.

What cowboy tune is the official song of Kansas?
A: Home on the Range.

What continent boasts the most telephone lines?
A: Europe.

What do Texas beef partisans call "wool on a stick"?
A: Lamb.

What South American country was home to the early human 'Patagnian giants"?
A: Argentina.

What Western Hemisphere people spoke Nahuatl?
A: The Aztecs.

What New Orleans soup has a name derived from the Bantu word for okra?
A: Gumbo.

What Pacific atoll got its name from its location between the Americas and Asia?
A: The Midway Islands.

What state volunteered to drop the moniker Hog and Hominy State?
A: Tennessee.

What regional accent did Americans deem sexiest, most liked and most recognizable?
A: Southern.

What interstate highway connects Boston and Seattle?
A: I-90.

Math trivia questions and answers.
Q: What mathematical symbol did math whiz Ferdinand von Lindemann determine to be a transcendental number in 1882?
A: Pi.

Q: What do you call an angle more than 90 degrees and less than 180 degrees?
A: Obtuse.

Q: What's the top number of a fraction called?
A: The numerator.

Q: What Greek math whiz noticed that the morning star and evening star were one and the same, in 530 B.C.?
A: Pythagoras.

Q: What's a polygon with four unequal sides called?
A: A quadrilateral.

Q: What's a flat image that can be displayed in three dimensions?
A: A hologram.

Q: What number does "giga" stand for?
A: One billion.

Q: What digit did Arab mathematician al-Khwarizmi give to the West around 800 B/B.?
A: Zero.

Q: What word describes a number system with a base of two?
A: Binary.

Q: How many equal sides does an icosahedron have?
A: Twenty.

Q: What do mathematicians call a regular polygon with eight sides?
A: An octagon.

Q: What T-word is defined in geometry as "a straight line that touches a curve but continues on with crossing it"?
A: Tangent.

Q: What geometrical shape forms the hole that fits and allen wrench?
A: The hexagon.

Q: What number is an improper fraction always greater than?
A: One.

Q: What two letters are both symbols for 1,000?
A: K and M.

Q: What's short for "binary digit"?
A: Bit.

Q: What century did mathematicians first use plus and minus signs?
A: The sixteenth.

Q: What number, a one followed by 100 zeros, was first used by nine-year-old Milton Sirotta in 1940?
A: Googol.

Q: What handy mathematical instrument's days were numbered when the pocket calculator made the scene in the 1970s?
A: The Slide rule's.

Scrabble

2009-07-15T16:29:00.001-07:00

KNOW YOUR 2 LETTER WORDS

There are a 120 2 letter words. If you are willing to learn anything specifically for playing Scrabble then these are the most important words to learn. They are useful to create parallel plays or for squeezing in a good play on a blocked board.

In fact you won't need to learn all of them, as 27 are everyday words like IT, IN etc., which leaves 93. Then there are interjections, contracted forms, tonic sol-fa and letter sounds which you will know but might not think are acceptable plays in Scrabble. These include:

AD, AH, AR, AW, BI, ED, EF, EH, EL, EM, EN, ER, ES, EX, FA, HA, HM, HO, LA, LO, MA, MI, MM, MO, OH, OO, OP, OW, PA, PO, RE, SH, ST, TA, TI, UG, UH, UM, UN, UR, YO.

That's another 41, only 52 to go now! You might even know some of these, for example OM (an intoned Hindu sacred symbol) or PI (mathematical symbol) but you'll probably just have to learn the rest. When you play with them regularly they will soon become second nature. They are:

AA, AB, AE, AG, AI, AL, AX, AY, BA, BO, CH, DA, DE, DI, EA, EE, ET FY, GI, GU, ID, IO, JO, KA, KO, KY, LI, MU, NA, NE, NU, NY, OB, OD, OE, OI, OM, OS, OU, OY, PE, PH, PI, QI, SI, TE, UT, WO, XI, XU, YA, YU, ZO.

DON'T ALWAYS GO FOR THE HIGHEST SCORE
A good starting point to decide where to play, is to ask yourself; what is the highest score I can get? However, it's not the only consideration. You need to think whether you are getting value for the tiles you play and consider what letters you are leaving on your rack.

The best tile is a blank. It vastly increases your chance of getting a 7 letter word and collecting a 50 point bonus. As a rule of thumb a blank should be held unless it increases your best play by upwards of 25 points. Think about setting target scores for the other letters such as S, J, Q, X, and Z.

Try to keep a balanced rack i.e. a rack that has similar number of vowels and consonants. Try to play duplicate letters (if you have 3 N's you may take a few points less in score in order to be able to play one of them.) Try to keep the letters from the word RETAINS on your rack as these are the letters most conducive to making 7 letter words and getting those elusive 50 point bonuses.

TRIPLE WORD SCORES
Triple word squares are crucial. So don't make them easily available to your opponent.

However don't be so concerned about these squares that you ignore good plays that open up the triples. Try to weigh up how many you score against what your opponent is likely to get. A play which covers the double letter square which is to be found 4 or 5 spaces from each triple will considerably depress the scores available on a triple and make the likely score from your opponent much lower.

HOOKS - LATERAL THINKING
Always look at the board to see whether there are any opportunities to ''hook'' onto existing plays. A ''hook'' is a letter that can be placed on the front or rear of a word to make a new word. There are ''front hooks'' like P onto LATE to make PLATE or ''rear hooks'' like R onto LATE to make LATER. Some everyday ones which may not immediately come to mind are U onto PEND to make UPEND or Y onto GRAVEL to make GRAVELY. There are 100's more.

Some unusual ones include K on the end of NAB to make NABK (a prickly shrub) and E on the front of TEN to make ETEN (an archaic word for a giant). Also, it follows that it's useful to know which words do not take any 'hooks'. Most words will take at least an S, but examples of common words that don't have any hooks include FRY and SUCH, these sorts of words can be used to block in a tight, defensive game.

FISHING
Generally it's a bad idea to play 1 or 2 letters in the hope of picking up a specific letter to make a great play. The most common letter in Scrabble is E; there are 12 E's in the set out of a total of 100. This means on average that you only have a 1 in 8 chance of picking an E and that the chances of picking any other specific letters are lower.

Near the end of the game, however, fishing becomes more viable. Obviously you won't know precisely what letters your opponent holds. But you can see what letters have been played and take an educated guess at what's left in the bag.

CHANGING
The occasional player never changes letters, arguing that it is a waste of a turn. However if you are continually scoring 10 points or lower because you have poor tiles then a change would probably be the best option.

There may be various reasons for a change:

You rack is not balanced. You have too many vowels or consonants and cannot score well because of this.

You are in danger of getting stuck with the Q at the end of the game.

The scores are close, the board is blocked and there are many useful letters left in the bag, which may, if you get them, win you the game.

ANAGRAMMING
One of the real skills in Scrabble is spotting the 7 letter word from an unlikely looking rack of letters. It's difficult to do this when you are shuffling all 7 letters so try to see whether you have any common suffixes or prefixes. If you have UN, IN, RE etc. move these the left of the rack and then shuffle the remaining five letters. Likewise, if you have -S, -ED, -ER, or -ING move these to the right and play with the other tiles. You'll find it easier to find possible 7 letter words this way.

Some other good prefixes are OUT, OVER, FORE, UNDER. Other useful suffixes include -AGE, -EST, -FUL, -IEST, -URE, -ABLE.

WINNING FROM BEHIND
In a game, don't get dispirited when you fall behind. It's possible to recover large deficits if you remain cool, keep the board reasonably open and don't try to recover all of the points in just one move.

Look at the state of the game; perhaps there is only one S left and you have it on your rack. In this case you can play a word close to a triple word spot and then pluralise it and take the spot on the next move without worrying that your opponent can play there.

AT THE END OF THE GAME TRY TO PLAY OUT FIRST
In a game where the scores are close, it is often vital to play out first, catching your opponent with tiles on his rack and thus garnering extra points. To achieve this you need to plan ahead when there are just a few tiles in the bag, thinking out how you can finish before your opponent.

Towards the end of the game make sure you know how many tiles are left. More often than not, particularly when you are ahead, it is a good idea to leave at least one tile in the bag. This means that: -

If you cannot go out in 1 move but can complete in 2, you will have 2 moves to your opponent's 1, giving you a much better chance of completing the game first. If your opponent plays a bonus word on his/her next play and takes the last tile you at least have 1 go to get rid of as many tiles as possible rather than giving your opponent the value of the 7 tiles on your rack as well as their bonus score.

TILE TRACKING
Try to keep a mental track of which of the most useful letters (J, Q, X, Z, S and blank) have been played. In tournament Scrabble, it is permissible to write down the letters as they are played. It is then possible in a tight endgame to work out what your opponent has on his/her rack and to make your play taking this into account, perhaps blocking an opportunity for them or setting yourself up with a scoring place which you know they cannot block.

If you do track tiles during the game it will help you make decisions about which tiles to play and which to keep. For example, you can play CLEAN or CLEAR for the same score, so you consult your tracking sheet and discover there are 3 R's left to come and only 1N. Therefore, you are more likely to pick up another R than an N and the better move is to play CLEAR, lessening the chances of creating duplicate letters and unbalancing your rack.

TILE TURNOVER
The more tiles that pass through your hands the more chance you have of getting one of those really useful ones -S, blank, J, Q, X, Z. You will need to evaluate your rack; sometimes a particularly good combination of five or six letters is worth keeping, but generally, where you can, try to play four or more tiles on each move.

Evaluating your rack is a real skill that you pick up if you play regularly. Try to judge which consonants fit together. An obvious example might be to retain C and H, or S, H and R. Another example - N, L, and R are all good letters but if all are kept they need a hard consonant like a D, T or G to make them more usable.

THE Q
The Q is the most difficult letter to play. 2 tips for dealing with it are:

The word QI (Chinese life force) will come in useful in many games. Other unusual useful words include QAT (a tea-like drug) and QADI (Muslim magistrate). If you cannot play the Q consider changing it, particularly at the end of the game when opportunities tend to be more restricted.

When they draw a U some players put it aside in case they then draw the Q at a later stage. This is a bad idea. Firstly you only have a 50-50 chance of drawing the Q anyway, secondly if you're trying to score with 6 letters rather than 7 you are greatly lessening your chances of getting good scores each move.

PREMIUM SQUARES
The double letter, triple letter, double word and triple word squares are referred to as the premium squares. Concentrate on using these squares to maximise your scores. With the letter premium squares a good tip is to find the highest scoring letter on your rack and try to land it on a double or triple letter square. Utilising the 2 letter words you can often play that high scoring letter in 2 words simultaneously scoring 4 times its worth on a double or 6 times on a triple.

Also try to combine the double and triple letter squares with the double and triple word squares in one move; this is where the really high non-bonus scores are made. If you can put the Q on a triple letter square, for example, and then play a 5 letter word down to a double word, you are looking at a 60 points + play. You can get the same sort of score by combining a high scoring letter on a double letter square at the edges of the board and playing a 4/5 letter word stretching onto a triple word.

CONSIDERING THE OPPONENT
If you have a regular opponent, try to work out his/her strengths and weaknesses. If they like a nice open board where they can make clever plays then try to keep the board tight. Conversely if your opponent likes a tight, defensive board then open the game up. Generally, if you are playing someone who has a superior word knowledge to you then try to keep the board confined and they will have less chance of utilising that knowledge.

When you're making a move consider how it might help your opponent. For instance: you have a choice of playing DEBUT or using the same letters as TUBED. If you play DEBUT, your opponent might have an S whereas TUBED cannot be extended and where the scores are close this may be the better move.

J, Q, X, Z
These are the highest scoring letters in the bag but they are not the only way of scoring. Don't waste them but try to play them as soon as you can. These letters have a high value because they are awkward; having them on your rack will cut down the variety of plays you make.

The X is the most flexible of the 4; you should aim to score around 30 with the X other than at the very end of the game where opportunities will be scarcer. Remember there are five 2 letter words containing the X - AX, EX, OX, XI and XU.

If you are looking to learn a few useful unusual words, the J, Q, X, Z words are good ones to concentrate on. A good way to remember them is in pairs e.g. OJIME (a carved bead used as a clasp) and OXIME (chemical compound) or TOAZE (alternative for tease) and TOUZE (to haul).

Did you know you have something in common with Mel Gibson, Sting, Keanu Reeves, Joan Collins And Queen Elizabeth II ?

You all play a game that's sold in 121 countries round the world.

Now in its 49th year, over 100 million sets of the game have been sold in 29 different languages making it easily the world's best selling word game.

No prizes for guessing we're talking about Scrabble. After all, this is the Scrabble Website!

To long-term devotees of the game and new fans alike, a very warm welcome.

We're going to be telling you about Scrabble's incredible history - a case of truth being stranger than fiction.

In 1931, Poughkeepsie in New York State was in a similar predicament to the rest of the USA ....deep in the depths of the depression.

There was no job security. Living on your wits was the order of the day.

And so it was that when the local architect, Alfred Mosher Butts, lost his job he decided to explore his passion for games and words.

Mild-mannered, bespectacled Butts disliked dice games. They were all down to luck. On the other hand, he felt that all-skill games, like chess, were too highbrow for the general public.

So he set out to devise a game that was half luck, half skill. And by the end of 1931 he had developed the initial idea for the game, which he called Lexico.

Lexico was played without a board and players scored on the basis of the lengths of the words formed. There were additional scores for words employing 'minor honours' (B, F, H, M, P, V, W, Y) and a higher additional score for major honours (J, K, Q, X, Z).

Butts calculated the letter frequency and value of each letter of the alphabet by meticulously combing the front page of the New York Times.

He reasoned that too many S's made the game too easy. So he reduced them to 4.

In 1933, Butts' application for a patent for Lexico was turned down.

Similarly, when he submitted the game to two games manufacturers, Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley, all he received were polite refusals.

Undeterred, over the next 5 years Butts made nearly 200 games himself which he gave or sold to friends. But that was as far as Lexico went. It wasn't a commercial success.

1938 saw Butts make a big breakthrough in developing the game.

The popularity of crosswords gave Butts the idea of combining the letters with a playing board, on which words could be joined in the manner of a crossword.

Lexico became New Anagrams, Alph, Criss-Cross then Criss-Crosswords.

The boards for the first Criss-Crosswords games were drawn with his architectural drafting equipment, reproduced by blue printing and pasted on folding chessboards.

The tiles were similarly hand lettered, then glued to quarter inch plywood and cut to match the squares on the board.

Through the years that followed, the game changed in its development. For example, at one time the opening word was placed near the upper left-hand corner of the board.

However, several of Butts original features have remained. The 15 by 15 square board and the 7-tile rack were original features. Also the distribution and the values of the letters remain unchanged from 1938 to this day.

But Criss-Crosswords met the same flat refusals as Lexico. The patent board turned him down again. And so did more games manufacturers. A decision they were collectively going to regret !

Butts thought briefly about becoming a manufacturer. But he cheerily acknowledged that he was no entrepreneur and returned to being an architect. And with the intervention of the Second World War, Butts didn't consider further development until 1948.

Then came the big breakthrough in the shape of James Brunot, an owner of one of the first Criss-Crosswords games.

The Brunots were intrigued by the game and believed it should be marketed. What's more, James Brunot had the time and inclination to make a commercial venture of it.

They shook hands on a deal. In return for allowing Brunot to manufacture the game, Butts would receive a royalty on every game sold.

The Brunots decided that the game needed a few finishing touches.

They rearranged the premium squares and simplified the rules, which were overly long and reconsidered the name of the game. Then they lodged a Copyright application, which was granted on 1 December, 1948.

Soon after, came the all important name change ! After much searching, they decided upon the name Scrabble for the game and managed to register the trademark on 16 December, 1948.

The modern game of Scrabble was born at last !

The Brunots initially set up shop in the living room of their home in Newtown, Connecticut.

Brunot bought the parts of his finished product from various manufacturers and assembled them there with the help of his wife. At first, they turned out just 18 games a day, painstakingly stamping letters on wooden tiles one at a time.

During 1949, their first year of production, they assembled and sold 2251 games in this way, losing $450 in the process. They continued to struggle in the years that followed.

By 1952, they were still losing money and ready to abandon the project. Brunot took a holiday to think things over.

He returned to find that word-of-mouth recommendation had brought in a deluge of orders. It was time to move to bigger premises, so they found an abandoned schoolhouse near their home in Connecticut and moved in.

In the fourth quarter, sales reached 37,000 units.

1952 was also the year that Jack Strauss, the Chairman of Macy's, New York, the biggest department store in the world, played Scrabble whilst on holiday.

He enjoyed playing it so much that on his return to New York, he asked the Games Department to send him up a few sets. The precise exchange can only be guessed at. But the Games Department had to own up to not stocking Scrabble. They very soon did!

What's more, Macy's supported a promotional campaign with the result that the game quickly captured the imagination of thousands.

By 1953, although by now making 6,000 sets a week, it became clear to Brunot that he couldn't match the demand for Scrabble. So he licensed the manufacture to Selchow and Righter, a leading American games manufacturer, who had previously rejected it.

For three years, orders had to be rationed. Demand just went up and up.

Meanwhile, the Scrabble craze spread to Australia in 1953. In the same year, it was launched in the UK by J.W. Spear & Sons, where the game was an instant success.

Brunot eventually sold off the rights to Scrabble in 1968 and Spear's acquired the rights to the world, outside of the USA, Canada and Australia. (However, they managed to pick up the Australian rights at a later date.) The rights to the game remain split in this way to this day.

In 1986, Selchow and Righter sold out to Coleco who promptly went bankrupt in 1987. So it was that 53 years after turning the game down, the rights for Scrabble in the USA and Canada were purchased by Milton Bradley.

1991 saw the first world championship take place in London. The second was held in New York City in 1993.

Regrettably, James Brunot died in October 1984. So he didn't live to see the first championship. But Alfred Butts did. He lived to be 93, passing away in April 1993.

He took pleasure in playing his game with family and friends to the end of his life. And this modest, unassuming man lived to see his brainchild become a worldwide phenomenon.

In 1994, J.W. Spear and Sons were acquired by Mattel Inc., the largest toy and game company in the world.

You can't win if you don't know the rules. Choose from the list below to get started.

There are three areas of rules and regulations that you need to be familiar with: Setup, Game Play, and How to Score with Scoring Examples to illustrate. We start with the Set Up instructions below. Follow the links at the bottom of the page or click on the link below to view the rest of the rules.

Setup

You should have a game board, 100 letter tiles, a letter bag, and four racks.

Before the game begins, all players should agree upon the dictionary that they will use, in case of a challenge. All words labeled as a part of speech (including those listed of foreign origin, and as archaic, obsolete, colloquial, slang, etc.) are permitted with the exception of the following: words always capitalized, abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes standing alone, words requiring a hyphen or an apostrophe.

Place all letters in the pouch, or facedown beside the board, and mix them up. Draw for first play. The player with the letter closest to "A" plays first. A blank tile beats any letter. Return the letters to the pool and remix. All players draw seven new letters and each place them on their racks.

Game Play

The first player combines two or more of his or her letters to form a word and places it on the board to read either across or down with one letter on the center square. Diagonal words are not allowed.

Complete your turn by counting and announcing your score for that turn. Then draw as many new letters as you played; always keep seven letters on your rack, as long as there are enough tiles left in the bag.

Play passes to the left. The second player, and then each in turn, adds one or more letters to those already played to form new words. All letters played on a turn must be placed in one row across or down the board, to form at least one complete word. If, at the same time, they touch others letters in adjacent rows, those must also form complete words, crossword fashion, with all such letters. The player gets full credit for all words formed or modified on his or her turn.

New words may be formed by:
Adding one or more letters to a word or letters already on the board.
Placing a word at right angles to a word already on the board. The new word must use one of the letters already on the board or must add a letter to it. (See Turns 2, 3 and 4 in the Scoring Examples section.)
Placing a complete word parallel to a word already played so that adjacent letters also form complete words. (See Turn 5 in the Scoring Examples section.)

No tile may be shifted or replaced after it has been played and scored.

Blanks: The two blank tiles may be used as any letters. When playing a blank, you must state which letter it represents. It remains that letter for the rest of the game.

You may use a turn to exchange all, some, or none of the letters. To do this, place your discarded letter(s) facedown. Draw the same number of letters from the pool, then mix your discarded letter(s) into the pool. This ends your turn.

Any play may be challenged before the next player starts a turn. If the play challenged is unacceptable, the challenged player takes back his or her tiles and loses that turn. If the play challenged is acceptable, the challenger loses his or her next turn. Consult the dictionary for challenges only. All words made in one play are challenged simultaneously. If any word is unacceptable, then the entire play is unacceptable. Only one turn is lost on any challenge.

The game ends when all letters have been drawn and one player uses his or her last letter; or when all possible plays have been made.

Scoring

Use a score pad or piece of paper to keep a tally of each player's score, entering it after each turn. The score value of each letter is indicated by a number at the bottom of the tile. The score value of a blank is zero.

The score for each turn is the sum of the letter values in each word(s) formed or modified on that turn, plus the additional points obtained from placing letters on Premium Squares.

Premium Letter Squares: A light blue square doubles the score of a letter placed on it; a dark blue square triples the letter score.

Premium Word Squares: The score for an entire word is doubled when one of its letters is placed on a pink square: it is tripled when one of its letters is placed on a red square. Include premiums for double or triple letter values, if any, before doubling or tripling the word score.

If a word is formed that covers two premium word squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled (4 times the letter count), or tripled and then re-tripled (9 times the letter count). NOTE: the center square is a pink square, which doubles the score for the first word.

Letter and word premiums count only on the turn in which they are played. On later turns, letters already played on premium squares count at face value.

When a blank tile is played on a pink or red square, the value of the word is doubled or tripled, even though the blank itself has no score value.

When two or more words are formed in the same play, each is scored. The common letter is counted (with full premium value, if any) for each word. (See Turns 3, 4 and 5 in the Scoring Examples section.)

BINGO! If you play seven tiles on a turn, it's a Bingo. You score a premium of 50 points after totaling your score for the turn.

Unplayed Letters: When the game ends, each player's score is reduced by the sum of his/her unplayed letters. In addition, if a player has used all of his or her letters, the sum of the other players' unplayed letters is added to that player's score.

The player with the highest final score wins the game. In case of a tie, the player with the highest score before adding or deducting unplayed letters wins.

Scoring Examples

In the following, the words added on five successive turns are shown in bold type. The scores shown are the correct scores if the letter R is placed on the center square. In Turn 1, count HORN: in Turn 2, FARM; in Turn 3, PASTE and FARMS; in Turn 4, MOB, NOT and BE; in Turn 5, BIT, PI and AT.

All tournament players make it a high priority to learn these 16 Q-words that don't use a U:
FAQIR - Variation of FAKIR, a Hindu ascetic.
FAQIRS - Plural of FAQIR.
QAID - A variation of CAID, a Muslim leader.
QAIDS - Plural of QAID.
QANAT - A system of underground tunnels and wells in the Middle East.
QANATS - Plural of QANAT.
QAT - Variation of KAT, an evergreen shrub.
QATS - Plural of QAT.
QINDAR - Variation of QINTAR, a monetary unit of Albania.
QINDARS - Plural of QINDAR.
QINDARKA - Albanian currency.
QINDARKAS - The plural of QINDARKA.
QINTAR - See above.
QINTARS - Plural of QINTAR.
QOPH - A letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
QOPHS - Plural of QOPH.
QWERTY - A standard typewriter keyboard.
QWERTYS - The plural of QWERTY, see above.
SHEQEL - An ancient unit of weight and money.
SHEQALIM - The plural of SHEQEL, see above
TRANQ - A variation of TRANK (i.e. tranquilizer).
TRANQS - Plural of TRANQ.

Impress your friends and family with SCRABBLE terminology. Our glossary will have you sounding like a SCRABBLE pro in no time. Just click on a letter to jump to that section of the glossary.

Abbreviations: DLS: Double Letter Score; DWS: Double Word Score; TLS: Triple Letter Score; TWS: Triple Word Score; ?: Blank; PTS.: Points.

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Alphagram: The alphabetic arrangement of a group of letters. Example: BEGNU is the alphagram of the word BEGUN.

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Anagram: A word that is spelled with the exact same letters as another word. Example: KITCHEN is an anagram of THICKEN, and vice versa. GAPE is an anagram of PAGE.

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Back Extension: See Extension Play.

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Back Hook: See Hook.

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Balancing Your Rack: Making a play that leaves the letters on your rack which will most likely help you to score well next turn. This often means leaving a favorable ratio of vowels and consonants. Also known as Rack Balance.

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Bingo: Any word played that uses all seven letters of the rack, earning a bonus of 50 points. British players use the term "bonus" instead of bingo.

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Bingo-Prone Tiles: A group of tiles that are likely to produce a bingo. Often used to describe a player's set of three to six tiles just before drawing his or her replacement tiles. Example: ERS?, AL?, or AERST.

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Blank: One of the two tiles that have no letter printed on them. The blank is worth zero points, but is widely regarded as the most valuable tile due to its chameleon-like ability of being able to represent any letter. Having one increases the odds of playing a bingo.

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Blank Bingo: A bingo that includes a blank tile.

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Blocking: The act of playing a word on the board that stops the opponent from making a potentially large score.

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Braille: To feel the surface of a tile while your hand is in the bag in order to draw a blank or other specific letter. This is strictly forbidden.

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"Challenge!": An opponent calls "Challenge!" when s/he thinks a word is not acceptable (i.e., not in the OSPD3). The opponent records the challenged words on a "challenge slip" and a word judge is called to verify the acceptability of all the words formed on a play. If any of the words challenged are unacceptable, the whole play is unacceptable. The player must then remove his or her play from the board and lose that turn. If all the words are acceptable, then the challenger loses his or her turn. Only one turn is lost on any challenge.

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Challenge Slip: The slip of paper upon which the words being challenged are printed by one of the players (and double-checked by the opponent). These slips are generally preferred to a player's simply pointing to the challenged word on the board. That's because mistakes are much more likely to be made unless the words are recorded.

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Chess Clock: See Tournament Clock.

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Closed Board: The opposite of an open board: when there are few or no places on the board to put down either bingos or other high-scoring plays.

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Coffeehousing: To make small talk, crack knuckles, or do any of a number of things meant to distract or mislead your opponent. This is unethical and strictly forbidden in clubs and tournaments. It is generally considered impolite to talk during a tournament game unless it is pertinent to the score or the play.

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Contestant Score Card: On this card each player keeps a record of each game's results: opponent's name and signature, who plays first, final score, total number of wins, and his or her own total point spread.

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Courtesy Rule: If an opponent takes more than a minute to "Hold!" a play, the player may draw new tiles but must keep them separate from the others until the hold is resolved. Often, a third rack is used to hold these new tiles.

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Credits: A seldom-used but effective method of deciding tournament results. One "credit" system has each player beginning each game with 30 credits. The winner automatically earns 10 credits, plus 1 credit for each 10 points of point spread (rounded off). The loser subtracts 1 credit from his or her original 30 for each 10 points of spread. Arbitrarily, no more than 60 credits nor fewer than 10 credits can be earned. For example, if Player #1 beats Player #2 400-350, Player #1 earns 30 + 10 (for winning) + 5 (for winning by 5 x 10 points) = 45 credits. Player #2 earns 30 - 5 (for losing by 5 x 10 points) = 25 credits. For ties, both players receive 35 credits.

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Double-Double (DWS-DWS): When a player makes a play with letters that cover two Double Word Score squares, it is known as playing a "Double-Double." The bonus for covering two DWSs on one play is four times the sum of the value of the letters of the Double-Double word. The sum should include the extra values earned from any DLS covered that turn.

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Dumping: Making a play that scores few points but rids the rack of a poor combination of letters.

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Endgame: That portion of a SCRABBLE game when there are fewer than seven tiles left to draw from the bag.

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Exchanging Tiles (or Trading Tiles): Instead of playing a word on the board, the player may use his or her turn to exchange from one to seven tiles for new tiles drawn from the bag. There must be at least seven tiles in the bag in order to exchange. To exchange, place the unwanted tiles facedown in front of you, announce the number of tiles you are exchanging, draw an equal number of tiles from the bag and place them on your rack. Finally, return the unwanted tiles to the bag.

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Extension Play: The extension of one word by adding two or more letters. Example: With QUEST on the board, adding CON to the front creates the extension CONQUEST. Also called Front Extension or Back Extension.

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Fishing: To play for only a few points or exchange only one or two tiles, keeping five or six really good tiles, with the hope of making a high-scoring play next turn.

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Frequency List: See Preprinted Tracking Sheet.

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Front Extension: See Extension Play.

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Front Hook: See Hook.

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"Hold!": An opponent calls "Hold!" when a player plays a word that the opponent considers challenging. Calling "Hold!" signals to the player not to draw new tiles until either the challenge is officially resolved or the hold is cancelled. To cancel a "Hold!" the opponent simply tells the player "I accept the play." Using chess clocks, an opponent may hold as long as s/he desires; with sand timers, a hold may last as long as three minutes. After one minute of holding, the player may draw tiles, but must keep them separate from the others. See Courtesy Rule.

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Hook Letter (or Hook): A letter that will spell a new word when it is played either at the front or end of a word already on the board. Example: With HARD on the board, the Y is a hook letter, since HARDY is acceptable. "Hook" is also used as a verb. Example: The letter C can "hook" on to HARD, since CHARD is acceptable. Also called Front Hook or Back Hook.

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Hot Spots: These are either specific squares or areas on the board that have excellent bonus-scoring opportunities. Players will do well to look for these areas before looking for words on their rack. Examples: Triple Letter Score squares or Double Word Score squares adjacent to vowels; a single letter placed between two open Triple Word Score squares; words that take a variety of hook letters (ARE, ON, CARE).

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Leave: The group of tiles on a player's rack after s/he makes a play and before s/he draws new tiles.

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Natural: A bingo that does not use a blank tile. Also called a Natural Bingo.

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Nongo: A bingo that won't play on the board.

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Neutralizing the Timer: : Stopping the game clock. Neither player's time continues during challenges, rule disputes, or score verifications.

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Official SCRABBLE® Players Dictionary, 3rd Edition: The Bible for all National SCRABBLE® Association Clubs and Tournaments. The official source for all of the two- to eight-letter words. For words over eight letters, the NSA uses Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition.

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Open Board: During play, the board is considered "open" when there are many places to play either bingos or other high-scoring words.

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Overdrawing Tiles: When one player draws more tiles from the bag than is appropriate.

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Parallel Play: A word played parallel to another word. Example:

M A R
L A T E

With MAR on the board, LATE is a parallel play that simultaneously forms MA, AT, and RE, all of which earn points for the player.

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Passing: A player may pass his or her turn by not exchanging tiles and not making a play on the board. The player says "Pass!," scores zero, and starts the opponent's timer. It is now the opponent's turn. In club or tournament play, when there are six consecutive scores of zero in a game, the game is over. A player scores zero when s/he either exchanges, passes, or loses a challenge.

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Phoney: Any unacceptable word. An unacceptable word is one that is not found in The Official SCRABBLE® Players Dictionary, or, if the root word has more than eight letters, it is not found in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition. However, if a phoney is not challenged, it will stay on the board for the remainder of the game.

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Point Spread: The algebraic difference between the winner's and loser's score of a game. Example: If Player #1 wins over Player #2 by 400 to 300, Player #1's point spread is + 100; Player #2's is - 100. See Total Spread.

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Power Tiles: There are ten power tiles. They are the two blanks, the four Ss, and the J, Q, X, and Z.

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Preprinted Tracking Sheet: : Also called Frequency List or simply Tracking Sheet. This sheet of paper has printed on it either the alphabet or a partial or complete list of the one hundred lettered tiles used in a SCRABBLE game.

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Rack Balance: See Balancing Your Rack.

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Rack Management: How a player develops his series of racks toward the goal of putting down a bingo and other high-scoring plays.

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Rating: For each sanctioned National SCRABBLE Association tournament, a new rating is computed for each of the contestants. The rating represents how well a player is doing in relation to other rated players. The higher the rating, the more skillful the player. Ratings currently range from 200 to 2,100.

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Rounds: In club or tournament play, one game is one round. Typically, there are five or six rounds (games) per day at most tournaments.

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Sand Timer: In some tournaments and clubs, where chess clocks are not available, three-minute sand timers are used to time each player's turns.

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Second Opinion: If a player believes the word judge has made a mistake, s/he may ask for a second person to research the challenge. That second judgment is known as the second opinion. If the second opinion contradicts the original one, a third opinion may be called for.

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Stems: Certain five- and six-letter combinations of letters are so useful for forming bingos that lists of bingos have been printed that include these stems. Some of the more useful ones are: STARE, STANE, RETINA, SATINE, and SATIRE. By learning these lists and saving these letters, players will learn to play bingos more often.

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Team (or Partnership) Game: Two or more players may pool their knowledge and play as one team against another.

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Total (Cumulative) Spread: Over the course of many games the + (plus) or -(minus) spread for each game is added together. At the end of a tournament each player has a total spread for the event.

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Tournament Clock: Often called a Chess Clock, it is actually two clocks housed in one plastic or wooden case. Sanctioned tournament games are timed using these clocks. Each player has twenty-five minutes to play the entire game. After making a move, the player presses the button on his or her side of the clock, which starts the opponent's time. The clock is used in this fashion until the game is over. Players are penalized 10 points per minute for every minute, or fraction thereof, used over the allotted twenty-five.

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Tracking (or Tile Tracking): The process of keeping track of the letters played on the board. This can give the astute player an advantage as the game progresses. Careful trackers can deduce an opponent's rack after there are no letters left to draw. By knowing the opponent's rack, the player can often make moves to block the opponent's best plays or set up high-scoring plays that the opponent can't block. Players are allowed to play with their own Preprinted Tracking Sheet alongside their score sheet.

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Tracking Sheet: See Preprinted Tracking Sheet.

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Triple-Triple: When a player makes a play with letters that cover two Triple Word Score squares, it is known as playing a "Triple-Triple." The bonus for covering two TWSs on one play is nine times the sum of the value of the letters of the Triple-Triple word. The sum should include the extra values earned from any DLS covered that turn.

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Turnover: Players are playing for "turnover" when they play as many tiles as they can in order to draw as many new tiles as possible. By playing for turnover, a player maximizes his or her chances for drawing the better tiles.

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Two-to-Make-Threes: Two-letter words that will take a third letter placed either in front or back to form a three-letter word. Example: AN is a two-to-make-three because BAN, CAN, etc., as well as AND, ANT, and ANY, are words. The three-letter words BAN, CAN, and ANT, and ANY, are also known as two-to-make threes.

Most people agree that a lifelong curiosity about words is one of the greatest gifts you can give to a child. Playing SCRABBLE with children not only fosters a love for words, it also builds other important skills. Figuring out where to place their words builds spatial relations and strategic thinking skills. And playing with other children and adults strengthens social skills. Tallying word scores requires a familiarity with addition and multiplication.

Here are some hints and tips for playing SCRABBLE with children:
Kids as young as four and five can start playing SCRABBLE Junior.
At eight, they're ready for regular SCRABBLE.
Don't spend a lot of time talking about rules and strategy. Jump right in!
Let children use a dictionary. It's a terrific safety net, and a great learning skill.
Play for fun, spelling your names - or a favorite word - with SCRABBLE tiles. Then practice adding up the score.
Explain anagrams. Have children see how many words they can make out of the letters in their names. Then show how the letters in the word TEA can also spell EAT and ETA or how CAROB can become COBRA.
Introduce rules and strategy once children understand the basics.

Results for arisai
AA
aa aas \ n pl. -S rough, cindery lava

AI
ai ais \ n pl. -S a three-toed sloth

AIR
air airest airer \ adv AIRER, AIREST early

AIR
air airs airing aired \ v -ED, -ING, -S to expose to the air (the mixture of gases that surrounds the earth)

AR
ar ars \ n pl. -S the letter R

ARIA
aria arias \ n pl. -S an elaborate melody for a single voice

AS
as \ adv to the same degree

IRIS
iris irising irised \ v -ED, -ING, -ES to give the form of a rainbow to

IRIS
iris irises \ n pl. IRISES or IRIDES a part of the eye

IS
is \ present 3d person sing. of be

RAIA
raia raias \ n pl. -S rayah

RAS
ras rases \ n pl. -ES an Ethiopian prince

RIA
ria rias \ n pl. -S a long, narrow inlet

SARI
sari saris \ n pl. -S an outer garment worn by Hindu women

SI
si sis \ n pl. -S ti

SIR
sir sirs \ n pl. -S a respectful form of address used to a man

SRI
sri sris \ n pl. -S mister; sir -- used as a Hindu title of respect

17 words found.

Fun Facts

2009-07-15T16:27:00.001-07:00

Words:

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

Animals:

A Crocodiles tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth.

A group of larks is called an exaltation.

A elephant is the heavest of all land mammals at around 8,000 pounds.

A kangaroo can't jump unless its tail is touching the ground.

A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away.

A millipede has 4 legs on each segment of it's body.

A mole can dig over 250 feet of tunnel in a single night.

A monkey was once tride and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend,Indiana.

A person at rest generates as much heat as a 100watt lightbulb

A group of owls is called a parliament.

A Penny whistle has six finger holes.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.

A quarter of Russia is covered by forest.

A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champange will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.

A rat can last longer with out water than a camel.

A rhinoceros' horn is made of compacted hair.

A rodents teeth never stop growing. They are worn down by the animal's constant gnawing on bark, leaves, and other vegetables.

A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee

A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.

A group of ravens is called a murder.

A shark can grow a new set of teeth in a week

A silicon chip a quarter inch square has the capacity of the orignal 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.

A sizable oak tree, during the typical growing season, gives off 28,000 gallons of moisture.

A snail can have about 25,000 teeth

A group of toads is called a knot.

About 3,500 gallons if water is needed to produce one pound of beef.

About 300 million cells die in your body every minute.

About 70% of all living organisms in the world are bacteria.

A group of rhinos is called a crash.

A species of earthworm in Australia grows up to 10 feet in length.

A starfish can turn its self inside out.

A ten gallon hat holds three quarters of a gallon.

A toothpick is the object most often chocked on by Americans.

A whales heart beats only nine times a minute.

A woodchuck breathers only ten times during hibernation.

A zebra is white with black stripes.

Anteaters prefers termites to ants.

Ants stretch before they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.

Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952.

All totalled, the sunlight that strikes Earth at any given moment weighs as much as a large ocean liner.

A group of Unicorns is called a blessing.

According to Genesis 7:2, God told Noah to take 14 of each kind of 'clean' animal in to the ark.

Actor Tommy Lee Jones and vice president Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.

After eating, a housefly regurgitates is food and then eats it again.

Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.

Canada has more lakes that the rest of the world combined.

Canada is an Indian word meaning Big Village.

Catgut comes from sheep not cats.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about 10.

A group of whales is called a pod.

Children grow more in the springtime.

Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly over head.

During a life time, one person generates more than 1000 pounds of red blood cells.

Armored knights raised their visors to themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.

Assuming you could walk to the sun it would take about 2000 years.

If the Earth was smooth, the ocean would cover the entire surface to a depth of 12 000 feet.

If you are chased by a crocodile, run zigzag, a crocodile is not good at making sharp turns.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

In ancient Egypt, killing a cat was a crime punishable by death.

In ancient Greece, where the mouse was sacred to Apollo, mice were sometimes devoured by temple priests.

In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 cam be jailed for cheating on their finals.

In Calama, a town in the Atacama Desert of Chile, it has never rained.

In the 19th century, the British Navy attempted to dispel the superstition that Friday was an unlucky day to embark on a ship. The Keel of a new ship was laid on a Friday, she was named HMS Friday, commanded by a Captain Friday, and finally went to sea on a Friday. Neither the ship nor her crew were ever heard of again.

In the middle Ages, the highest court in France ordered the execution of a cow for injuring a human.

It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years, there have only been230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.

It take 8.5 minutes for light to get from the sun to the earth.

It takes a yard of sugarcane to make one sugar cube.

It takes the insect eating Venus Flytrap plant only half a second to shut its trap on prey.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customer wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.

Jaw muscles can provide about 200 pounds of force to being the back teeth together for chewing.

Jet lag was once called boat lag, back before jets existed.

Just twenty seconds' worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11's lunar module landed on the moon.

Knitted socks discovered in Ancient Egyptian tombs have been dated back as far as the 3rd century AD.

Lemon sharks grow a new set of teeth every two weeks! They grow more than 24,000 new teeth every year!

Leonardo Da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

Less than 7% of the population donates blood.

Less than 2% of the water on Earth is fresh.

Li is the family name for over 87 million People in China.

Lightning strikes the earth about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.

Lobsters have blue blood.

Many hamsters only blink one eye at a time.

-Misquitos are attracted to the color blue.

-There is a species of butterfly in Brazil that has the color and smell of chocolate.

-It would take 60,113 leaf cutter ants to lift a ten pound picnic basket.

-The housefly can carry more than 25 different diseases.

-A dragonfly can use its feet for perching but not walking.

-A housefly lives roughly two months.

-A field bee will fly about 50,000 miles to collect enough nectar to make a pound of honey.

-The most dangerous animal in Ireland is the bumblebee.

-It would take 14.3 billion fireflies to generate the visable brightness of the sun.

-Some species of ants have five noses.

-An average dairy cow produces four times its body weight in manure each year.

-Kiwis are the only bird that hunts by smell.

-A birds eye keeps everything in focus at all times.

-Elvis had a pet monkey named Scatter.

-A sheep trained to turn the lights on and off will leave them them on 82% of the time.

-A blind chameleon will still change color to match its surroundings.

-All dogs except the Chow have a pink tongue, the Chow's tongue is bluish black.

-Nine out of ten extinct species were birds.

-Lions sleep 17 hours per day.

-Most wild birds live only 10% of their normal life span.

-Mouse sex only lasts five seconds.

-Florida officals recieve 8,000 complaints each year about alligators.

-Pigeons have three sets of eyelids.

-Male monkeys go bald just as men do.

-Giraffes have no vocal cords, the communicate with their tails.

-About one third of all species of snakes are venomous.

-The stomach of a hippo can be up to 10 feet long and hold up to 400 pounds of food.

-An Elephant's tusks never stop growing as long as it lives.

-If left alone, a dog will spend up to 3 hours a day remarking its scent posts.

-The horseshoe crab has sky-blue blood.

-A snapping turtle can only swollow when its head is under water.

-When given unlimited access to mice, cats will kill about 15 before stopping.

-Lobsters and jellyfish never stop growing.

-The seahorse is the only fish that swims upright.

-Cat milk is 10% protein where cow milk is only 3%.

-Crocodiles can't move their tongues.

-The pouch on a pelican's beak can hold up to 2 gallons of water.

-A homing pigeon will not be able to find its way home if a magnet it attached to their neck.

-The speckles on a bird's egg are as individual as a fingerprint.

-The upstroke of a bird's wing moves it forward, the downstroke only keeps it airborn.

-A giraffe can run faster than a horse and go longer without water than a camel.

-A freshly hatched crocodile is three times longer than the egg it came from.

-Polar bears are left-handed.

-Elephants are not afraid of mice.

-A snail can sleep for three years.

-Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.

-All polar bears are left handed.

-The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.

-You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

-A blue whales testicles are the size of a family car.

-Robins eat three miles of earth worms in a year.

-An oyster changes sex several times during its life.

-Male monkeys loose their hair the same way men do.

-Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cannot find food.

-Ostriches can run faster than horses and the males can roar like lions.

-Skunks can accurately spray their fluid up to ten feet.

-A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink.

-Sheep can survive up to two weeks buried in show drifts.

-A slug has four noses.

-A turtle can breath through its butt.

-An ant can detect movement through five centimeters of earth.

-A hippo can open it's mouth wide enouth to fit a four foot child inside.

-Bats always exit a cave to the left.

-A crocodile can't move it's tongue.

-When mating, a hummingbird's wings beat 200 times a second.

-Two dogs were hanged for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials.

-Jackrabbits got their name because their ears look like a donkey's (Jackass).

-Rabbits and horses cannot vomit.

-If birds could sweat they wouldn't be able to fly.

-Sloths sneeze slowly. They also give birth upside down.... slowly.

-Goldfish have a memory span of 3 seconds.

-A whales heart beats about once every 6 and a half seconds.

-The average American Bald Eagle weighs about 9 pounds.

-A chicken's top speed is 9 mph.

-A bat can eat up to 1,000 insects per hour.

-Argentina's falabella horses are only 16 inches tall fully grown and are the smallest horses on Earth.

-The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal.

-Lobsters like to eat lobster.

-To maintain a chimpanzee in captivity for 60 years it would cost an estimated $300,000.

-Crocodiles can't move their tongues.

-Wolves could bark like dogs, they don't because they don't want to.

-An adult crocodile can go two years without eating.

-A roadrunner purrs when it is content.

-A cow has four stomachs.

-The decapitated jaws of a snapping turtle can keep snapping for about a day.

-The average cow produces about 70,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

-A study has concluded that if a woodchuck could chuck wood it could chuck about 700 pounds.

-A mother shark can give birth to as many as 70 baby sharks per litter.

-Both gorillas and house cats purr.

-A hibernating bear can go as long as 6 months without a bathroom break.

-The only time a turkey whistles is when it is panicking.

-Whales and Buffalos both stampede.

-The top speed of a pigeon in flight is 90 mph.

-Squirrels cannot see the color red.

-Chimpanzees will hunt ducks if given the opportunity.

-Sheep snore.

-A group of jellyfish is called a "smack."

-One humped camels run faster than two humped camels.

-Camel hair brushes are made from squirrel hair.

-Emus cannot walk backwards.

-Camel's milk does not curdle.

-Armadillos can catch malaria.

-The last animal in the dictionary is the zyzzyva, a tropical American weevil.

-Black sheep have a better sense of smell then white sheep.

-The English Sparrow is not a sparrow and it comes from Africa, not England.

-Baboons cannot throw overhand.

-Lions are the only cats that live in packs.

-To get a gallon of milk, it takes about 345 squirts from a cow's utter.

-A warthog has only 4 warts, all of which are on its head.

-The penalty for stealing a rabbit in 19th-century england was seven years in prison.

-Even bloodhounds cannot smell the difference between two identical twins.

-Cows and cats both get hairballs.

-Camels are born without humps.

-Anteaters can flick their tongues 160 times a minute.

Food:

-The Incas measured time by how long it took a potato to cook.

-Apples ripen after being picked while oranges do not.

-A peanut is one of the most concentrated source of nourishment.

-Half the people in the world will eat rice on any given day.

-Alaskans eat twice as much ice cream per capita than the rest of the nation.

A peanut is neither a pea nor a nut.

-A typical banana travels 4,000 miles before being eaten.

-There are 27 chemicals that can be added to bread without being listed on the label.

-Coffee is the world's most recognizable smell.

-It takes four tons of grapes to make one ton of rasins.

-An average adult eats 2,000 pounds of food each year.

Human Body:

- It is impossible to lick your elbow.

-Your body requires 1000-1500 calories per day just to simply survive (breathing, sleeping, eating).

-Every day an adult body produces 300 billion new cells.

-Scientists say the higher your I.Q. the more you dream.

-The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest it the male sperm.

-You use 200 muscles to take one step.

-Muscle cells live as long as you do while skin cells live less than 24 hours.

-A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball.

-Your brain operates on the same amount of power that would light a 10-watt light bulb.

-There are 5 million hair follicles on an average adult.

-The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades.

-The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

-Approximately 75% of human poop is made of water.

-Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing.

-It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

-The average human dream lasts 2-3 seconds.

-Your brain is more active during the night than the day.

-One human hair can support 3kg.

-Human thighbones are stronger than concrete.

-The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair itself.

-An average human loses about 200 head hairs per day.

-The white part of your fingernail is called the Lunula.

-There is enough iron in a human being to make one small nail.

-A shank is the part of the sole between the heel and the ball of the foot.

-The talus is the second largest bone in the foot.

-The attachment of human muscles to skin is what causes dimples.

-A 13 year old child found a tooth growing out of his foot in 1977.

-Your thumb is the same length of your nose.

-A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.

-Dogs and Humans are the only animals with prostates.

-It only takes 7lbs of of pressure to rip off your ears.

-There are nine muscles in your ear.

-The navel divides the body of a newborn baby into two equal parts.

-If the average male never shaved, his beard would be 13 feet long when he died.

-Experts say the human body has 60,000 miles of blood vessels.

-The tongue is the only muscle attached at one end.

-Fetuses can hiccup.

-Your brain uses 40% of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream.

-Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.

-The longest recorded bout of hiccups lasted for 65 years.

-The longest recorded sneezing fit lasted 978 days.

-Your stomach has 35 million digestive glands.

-At the moment of conception, you spent about half an hour as a single cell.

-There is about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.

-Side by side, 2000 cells from the human body could cover about one square inch.

-There are no two tongue prints that are alike.

-Your body contains about four ounces of salt.

-Injured fingernails grow faster than uninjured ones.

-Women blink twice as much as men.

-It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

-The average person's skin weighs twice as much as their brain.

-When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dialate, they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate.

-It takes twice as long to lose new muscle if you stop working out than it did to gain it.

-The three things pregnant women dream most of during their first trimester are 1) frogs 2) worms 3) potted plants.

-Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil.

-If they were laid end to end, the blood vessels in your body would wrap around the equator three times.

-Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people.

-Bone is stronger, inch for inch, than the steel in skyscrapers.

-About one third of the human race has 20-20 vision.

-In a hot climate, you can sweat as much as 3 gallons of water a day.

-Fingernails are made from the same substance as a bird's beak.

-A runner consumes about 7 quarts of oxygen while running a 100-yard dash.

-The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.

-Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.

-Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.

-A pair of human feet contain 250,000 sweat glands.

-Living brain cells are bright pink.

-You're ears secrete more earwax when you are afraid than when you aren't.

-Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.

-If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.

-Your body contains the same amount of iron as an iron nail.

-The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man.

Miscellanous:

-The average pencil will draw a line 35 miles long.

-Raindrops can fall up to 22 miles per hour.

-American Indians hardly ever go bald.

-A normal 100 ton blue whale eats its own weight in microscopic krill each month.

-Roman statues were often made with heads that could be removed and replaced with other heads.

-In ancient Rome, any house hit by lightning was considered consecrated.

-When astronauts returned from the moon they had to go through customs.

-Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon.

-Denmark's flag has remained the same since the 13th century.

-More cowboys died crossing swollen rivers in the old west than in gun fights.

-A boulder is a rock that is 10 or more inches in diameter.

-Hippos can run faster than humans.

-The weight of the sun's light on the Earth's surface is 2 pounds per square mile.

-Stamp collecting is the most popular hobby in the world.

-With enough training an elephant can throw a baseball faster than a human.

-It would take 27,000 spider webs to produce a single pound of spider silk.

-Tombstones were originally put over graves so that the dead could not escape.

-It is impossible for it to hail when ground temperature is below freezing.

-The diamond is the only gem composed of a single element.

-Plants run fevers when they are sick.

-The bark of the giant sequioa can be up to 2 feet thick.

-More people die playing golf than any other sport, the leading cause of death is heart attacks and strokes.

-The kilt originated in France.

-If you work nights, you are almost twice as likely to have an accident than if you work days.

-A cubic foot of gold weighs more than half a ton.

-The geodesic dome is the only structure that becomes stronger as it increases in size.

-A plane uses less fuel the higher it flies.

-A third of the Earth's land surface can be classified as desert.

-The seed cones of the cycad tree can weigh up to 90 pounds.

-Floods cause more death and destruction in the U.S. than any other natural disaster.

-Las Vegas, Nevada is the brightest city when seen from space.

- Lightning bolts are only about two inches wide.

-The average car contains 15,000 parts.

-The average adult has 4 dreams each night and 1 nightmare per year.

-Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18.

-Nearly 1,000 people each year die as a direct result of volcanic activity.

-The average person speaks 450 words in a typical 3 minute phone call.

-Columbus traveled at an average speed of 2.8 mph on his first voyage across the sea.

About 85% of the plant life on the Earth is in the ocean.
-Los Angeles's full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, LA

- One man had the hiccups for 69 years.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were thirty.

Mythology

2009-07-15T16:24:00.002-07:00

Gods and Goddesses Around the World
Aztec
Huitzilopochtli was the god of the sun and of war. He was the patron god of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, where Mexico City now stands. The Aztecs built a great temple there in his honor and sacrificed many humans to him.
Coatlicue was the goddess of the earth and the mother of all the gods. She also gave birth to the moon and stars. In Tenochtitlán the Aztecs carved a gigantic stone statue of her wearing a necklace made of human hearts and hands.
Chicomecoatl was the goddess of corn and fertility. So important was corn to the Aztecs that she was also known as “the goddess of nourishment.”
Quetzalcoatl was the god of learning. A wise god, he helped to create the universe and humankind and later invented agriculture and the calendar. He is often depicted as a magnificent feathered serpent.
Egyptian
Ra was the supreme god and the god of the sun. The early pharaohs claimed to be descended from him. He sometimes took the form of a hawk or a lion.
Nut represented the heavens and helped to put the world in order. She had the ability to swallow stars and the pharaohs and cause them to be born again. She existed before all else had been created.
Osiris was the god of the underworld and the judge of the dead. He was associated with the continuity of life and was often shown wearing mummy wrappings.
Isis invented agriculture. She was the goddess of law, healing, motherhood and fertility. She came to be seen as a kind of Mother Earth figure.
Horus was a sky god who loved goodness and light. The son of Osiris and Isis, he was sometimes depicted as a young child.
Thoth was the god of wisdom and magic. He was believed to have invented writing, astronomy and other arts, and served as a scribe to the gods.
Nephthys was the goddess of the dead. She was a kind and understanding companion to the newly dead as well as to those left behind.
See also Egyptian Mythology.

Mayan
Hunahpu was a god of the sun and the father of the first humans. A great hero, with his brother he defeated the forces of death and went on to rule in the heavens.
Hurakan was the god of storms and winds. When the first humans made him angry, he swept them away in a violent flood. The word “hurricane” comes from his name.
Ixchel was the goddess of the moon and the protector of pregnant women. She was often depicted as an old woman wearing a full skirt and holding a serpent.
Chac was the god of agriculture and a great friend to humankind. He brought them rain and used his vast tail and fangs to protect planted fields.
Itzamna was the state god of the Mayan empire and the founder of its people. Corn, chocolate, writing and calendars were among his many gifts to them.
Norse
Odin was the supreme god and, along with his brothers Vili and Ve, the creator of the world. He was also the ruler of war and wisdom.
Frigg was the goddess of the sky, marriage and motherhood. It was believed that she knew the fate of each person, but kept it a close secret.
Loki was the god of mischief and death. He liked to invent horrible ways to harm the other gods. His nastiness and trickery earned him many an enemy.
Freyja was the goddess of love and fertility. She was very beautiful and enjoyed music and song. Fairies were among her most beloved companions.
Balder was the god of light, peace and joy. A kind and gentle god, he was slain in a plot hatched by Loki. He was greatly mourned, especially by his parents, Odin and Frigg.

Greek and Roman Mythology
Most of the Greek deities were adopted by the Romans, although in many cases there was a change of name. In the list below, information is given under the Greek name; the name in parentheses is the Roman equivalent. However, all Latin names are listed with cross-references to the Greek ones. In addition, there are several deities that are exclusively Roman. Bold words within entries indicate cross references.

Achelous: River god; son of Oceanus and Tethys and said to be the father of the Sirens.
Acheron: One of several Rivers of Underworld.
Achilles: Greek warrior; slew Hector at Troy; slain by Paris, who wounded him in his vulnerable heel.
Actaeon: Hunter; surprised Artemis bathing; changed by her to stag; and killed by his dogs.
Admetus: King of Thessaly; his wife, Alcestis, offered to die in his place.
Adonis: Beautiful youth loved by Aphrodite.
Aeacus: One of three judges of dead in Hades; son of Zeus.
Aeëtes: King of Colchis; father of Medea; keeper of Golden Fleece.
Aegeus: Father of Theseus; believing Theseus killed in Crete, he drowned himself; Aegean Sea named for him.
Aegisthus: Son of Thyestes; slew Atreus; with Clytemnestra, his paramour, slew Agamemnon; slain by Orestes.
Aegyptus: Brother of Danaus; his sons, except Lynceus, slain by Danaides.
Aeneas: Trojan; son of Anchises and Aphrodite; after fall of Troy, led his followers eventually to Italy; loved and deserted Dido.
Aeolus: One of several Winds.
Aesculapius: See Asclepius.
Aeson: King of Ioclus; father of Jason; overthrown by his brother Pelias; restored to youth by Medea.
Aether: Personification of sky.
Aethra: Mother of Theseus.
Agamemnon: King of Mycenae; son of Atreus; brother of Menelaus; leader of Greeks against Troy; slain on his return home by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Aglaia: One of several Graces.
Ajax: Greek warrior; killed himself at Troy because Achilles's armor was awarded to Odysseus.
Alcestis: Wife of Admetus; offered to die in his place but saved from death by Hercules.
Alcmene: Wife of Amphitryon; mother by Zeus of Hercules.
Alcyone: One of several Pleiades.
Alecto: One of several Furies.
Alectryon: Youth changed by Ares into cock.
Althaea: Wife of Oeneus; mother of Meleager.
Amazons: Female warriors in Asia Minor; supported Troy against Greeks.
Amor: See Eros.
Amphion: Musician; husband of Niobe; charmed stones to build fortifications for Thebes.
Amphitrite: Sea goddess; wife of Poseidon.
Amphitryon: Husband of Alcmene.
Anchises: Father of Aeneas.
Ancile: Sacred shield that fell from heavens; palladium of Rome.
Andraemon: Husband of Dryope.
Andromache: Wife of Hector.
Andromeda: Daughter of Cepheus; chained to cliff for monster to devour; rescued by Perseus.
Anteia: Wife of Proetus; tried to induce Bellerophon to elope with her.
Anteros: God who avenged unrequited love.
Antigone: Daughter of Oedipus; accompanied him to Colonus; performed burial rite for Polynices and hanged herself.
Antinoüs: Leader of suitors of Penelope; slain by Odysseus.
Aphrodite (Venus): Goddess of love and beauty; daughter of Zeus and Dione; mother of Eros.
Apollo: God of beauty, poetry, music; later identified with Helios as Phoebus Apollo; son of Zeus and Leto.
Aquilo: One of several Winds.
Arachne: Maiden who challenged Athena to weaving contest; changed to spider.
Ares (Mars): God of war; son of Zeus and Hera.
Argo: Ship in which Jason and followers sailed to Colchis for Golden Fleece.
Argus: Monster with hundred eyes; slain by Hermes; his eyes placed by Hera into peacock's tail.
Ariadne: Daughter of Minos; aided Theseus in slaying Minotaur; deserted by him on island of Naxos and married to Dionysus.
Arion: Musician; thrown overboard by pirates but saved by dolphin.
Artemis (Diana): Goddess of moon; huntress; twin sister of Apollo.
Asclepius (Aesculapius): Mortal son of Apollo; slain by Zeus for raising dead; later deified as god of medicine. Also known as Asklepios.
Astarte: Phoenician goddess of love; variously identified with Aphrodite, Selene, and Artemis.
Asterope: See Sterope.
Astraea: Goddess of Justice; daughter of Zeus and Themis.
Atalanta: Princess who challenged her suitors to a foot race; Hippomenes won race and married her.
Athena (Minerva): Goddess of wisdom; known poetically as Pallas Athene; sprang fully armed from head of Zeus.
Atlas: Titan; held world on his shoulders as punishment for warring against Zeus; son of Iapetus.
Atreus: King of Mycenae; father of Menelaus and Agamemnon; brother of Thyestes, three of whose sons he slew and served to him at banquet; slain by Aegisthus.
Atropos: One of several Fates.
Aurora: See Eos.
Auster: One of several Winds.
Avernus: Infernal regions; name derived from small vaporous lake near Vesuvius which was fabled to kill birds and vegetation.
Bacchus: See Dionysus.
Bellerophon: Corinthian hero; killed Chimera with aid of Pegasus; tried to reach Olympus on Pegasus and was thrown to his death.
Bellona: Roman goddess of war.
Boreas: One of several Winds.
Briareus: Monster of hundred hands; son of Uranus and Gaea.
Briseis: Captive maiden given to Achilles; taken by Agamemnon in exchange for loss of Chryseis, which caused Achilles to cease fighting, until death of Patroclus.
Cadmus: Brother of Europa; planter of dragon seeds from which first Thebans sprang.
Calliope: One of several Muses.
Calypso: Sea nymph; kept Odysseus on her island Ogygia for seven years.
Cassandra: Daughter of Priam; prophetess who was never believed; slain with Agamemnon.
Castor: One of Dioscuri.
Celaeno: One of several Pleiades.
Centaurs: Beings half man and half horse; lived in mountains of Thessaly.
Cephalus: Hunter; accidentally killed his wife Procris with his spear.
Cepheus: King of Ethiopia; father of Andromeda.
Cerberus: Three-headed dog guarding entrance to Hades.
Ceres: See Demeter.
Chaos: Formless void; personified as first of gods.
Charon: Boatman on Styx who carried souls of dead to Hades; son of Erebus.
Charybdis: Female monster; personification of whirlpool.
Chimera: Female monster with head of lion, body of goat, tail of serpent; killed by Bellerophon.
Chiron: Most famous of centaurs.
Chronos: Personification of time.
Chryseis: Captive maiden given to Agamemnon; his refusal to accept ransom from her father Chryses caused Apollo to send plague on Greeks besieging Troy.
Circe: Sorceress; daughter of Helios; changed Odysseus's men into swine.
Clio: One of several Muses.
Clotho: One of several Fates.
Clytemnestra: Wife of Agamemnon, whom she slew with aid of her paramour, Aegisthus; slain by her son Orestes.
Cocytus: One of several Rivers of Underworld.
Creon: Father of Jocasta; forbade burial of Polynices; ordered burial alive of Antigone.
Creüsa: Princess of Corinth, for whom Jason deserted Medea; slain by Medea, who sent her poisoned robe; also known as Glaüke.
Creusa: Wife of Aeneas; died fleeing Troy.
Cronus (Saturn): Titan; god of harvests; son of Uranus and Gaea; dethroned by his son Zeus.
Cupid: See Eros.
Cybele: Anatolian nature goddess; adopted by Greeks and identified with Rhea.
Cyclopes: Race of one-eyed giants (singular: Cyclops).
Daedalus: Athenian artificer; father of Icarus; builder of Labyrinth in Crete; devised wings attached with wax for him and Icarus to escape Crete.
Danae: Princess of Argos; mother of Perseus by Zeus, who appeared to her in form of golden shower.
Danaïdes: Daughters of Danaüs; at his command, all except Hypermnestra slew their husbands, the sons of Aegyptus.
Danaüs: Brother of Aegyptus; father of Danaïdes; slain by Lynceus.
Daphne: Nymph; pursued by Apollo; changed to laurel tree.
Decuma: One of several Fates.
Deino: One of several Graeae.
Demeter (Ceres): Goddess of agriculture; mother of Persephone.
Diana: See Artemis.
Dido: Founder and queen of Carthage; stabbed herself when deserted by Aeneas.
Diomedes: Greek hero; with Odysseus, entered Troy and carried off Palladium, sacred statue of Athena.
Diomedes: Owner of man-eating horses, which Hercules, as ninth labor, carried off.
Dione: Titan goddess; mother by Zeus of Aphrodite.
Dionysus (Bacchus): God of wine; son of Zeus and Semele.
Dioscuri: Twins Castor and Pollux; sons of Leda by Zeus.
Dis: See Pluto, Hades.
Dryads: Wood nymphs.
Dryope: Maiden changed to Hamadryad.
Echo: Nymph who fell hopelessly in love with Narcissus; faded away except for her voice.
Electra: Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; sister of Orestes; urged Orestes to slay Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Electra: One of several Pleiades.
Elysium: Abode of blessed dead.
Endymion: Mortal loved by Selene.
Enyo: One of several Graeae.
Eos (Aurora): Goddess of dawn.
Epimetheus: Brother of Prometheus; husband of Pandora.
Erato: One of several Muses.
Erebus: Spirit of darkness; son of Chaos.
Erinyes: One of several Furies.
Eris: Goddess of discord.
Eros (Amor or Cupid): God of love; son of Aphrodite.
Eteocles: Son of Oedipus, whom he succeeded to rule alternately with Polynices; refused to give up throne at end of year; he and Polynices slew each other.
Eumenides: One of several Furies.
Euphrosyne: One of several Graces.
Europa: Mortal loved by Zeus, who, in form of white bull, carried her off to Crete.
Eurus: One of several Winds.
Euryale: One of several Gorgons.
Eurydice: Nymph; wife of Orpheus.
Eurystheus: King of Argos; imposed twelve labors on Hercules.
Euterpe: One of several Muses.
Fates: Goddesses of destiny; Clotho (Spinner of thread of life), Lachesis (Determiner of length), and Atropos (Cutter of thread); also called Moirae. Identified by Romans with their goddesses of fate; Nona, Decuma, and Morta; called Parcae.
Fauns: Roman deities of woods and groves.
Faunus: See Pan.
Favonius: One of several Winds.
Flora: Roman goddess of flowers.
Fortuna: Roman goddess of fortune.
Furies: Avenging spirits; Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone; known also as Erinyes or Eumenides.
Gaea: Goddess of earth; daughter of Chaos; mother of Titans; known also as Ge, Gea, Gaia, etc.
Galatea: Statue of maiden carved from ivory by Pygmalion; given life by Aphrodite.
Galatea: Sea nymph; loved by Polyphemus.
Ganymede: Beautiful boy; successor to Hebe as cupbearer of gods.
Glaucus: Mortal who became sea divinity by eating magic grass.
Golden Fleece: Fleece from ram that flew Phrixos to Colchis; Aeëtes placed it under guard of dragon; carried off by Jason.
Gorgons. Female monsters; Euryale, Medusa, and Stheno; had snakes for hair; their glances turned mortals to stone.
Graces: Beautiful goddesses: Aglaia (Brilliance), Euphrosyne (Joy), and Thalia (Bloom); daughters of Zeus.
Graeae. Sentinels for Gorgons.; Deino, Enyo, and Pephredo; had one eye among them, which passed from one to another.
Hades (Dis): Name sometimes given Pluto; also, abode of dead, ruled by Pluto.
Haemon: Son of Creon; promised husband of Antigone; killed himself in her tomb.
Hamadryads: Tree nymphs.
Harpies: Monsters with heads of women and bodies of birds.
Hebe (Juventas): Goddess of youth; cupbearer of gods before Ganymede; daughter of Zeus and Hera.
Hecate: Goddess of sorcery and witchcraft.
Hector: Son of Priam; slayer of Patroclus; slain by Achilles.
Hecuba: Wife of Priam.
Helen: Fairest woman in world; daughter of Zeus and Leda; wife of Menelaus; carried to Troy by Paris, causing Trojan War.
Heliades: Daughters of Helios; mourned for Phaëthon and were changed to poplar trees.
Helios (Sol): God of sun; later identified with Apollo.
Helle: Sister of Phrixos; fell from ram of Golden Fleece; water where she fell named Hellespont.
Hephaestus (Vulcan): God of fire; celestial blacksmith; son of Zeus and Hera; husband of Aphrodite.
Hera (Juno): Queen of heaven; wife of Zeus.
Hercules: Hero and strong man; son of Zeus and Alcmene; performed twelve labors or deeds to be free from bondage under Eurystheus; after death, his mortal share was destroyed, and he became immortal. Also known as Herakles or Heracles. Labors: (1) killing Nemean lion; (2) killing Lernaean Hydra; (3) capturing Erymanthian boar; (4) capturing Cerynean hind; (5) killing man-eating Stymphalian birds; (6) procuring girdle of Hippolyte; (7) cleaning Augean stables; (8) capturing Cretan bull; (9) capturing man-eating horses of Diomedes; (10) capturing cattle of Geryon; (11) procuring golden apples of Hesperides; (12) bringing Cerberus up from Hades.
Hermes (Mercury): God of physicians and thieves; messenger of gods; son of Zeus and Maia.
Hero: Priestess of Aphrodite; Leander swam Hellespont nightly to see her; drowned herself at his death.
Hesperus: Evening star.
Hestia (Vesta): Goddess of hearth; sister of Zeus.
Hippolyte: Queen of Amazons; wife of Theseus.
Hippolytus: Son of Theseus and Hippolyte; falsely accused by Phaedra of trying to kidnap her; slain by Poseidon at request of Theseus.
Hippomenes: Husband of Atalanta, whom he beat in race by dropping golden apples, which she stopped to pick up.
Hyacinthus: Beautiful youth accidentally killed by Apollo, who caused flower to spring up from his blood.
Hydra: Nine-headed monster in marsh of Lerna; slain by Hercules.
Hygeia: Personification of health.
Hymen: God of marriage.
Hyperion: Titan; early sun god; father of Helios.
Hypermnestra: Daughter of Danaüs; refused to kill her husband Lynceus.
Hypnos (Somnus): God of sleep.
Iapetus: Titan; father of Atlas, Epimetheus, and Prometheus.
Icarus: Son of Daedalus; flew too near sun with wax-attached wings and fell into sea and was drowned.
Io: Mortal maiden loved by Zeus; changed by Hera into heifer.
Iobates: King of Lycia; sent Bellerophon to slay Chimera.
Iphigenia: Daughter of Agamemnon; offered as sacrifice to Artemis at Aulis; carried by Artemis to Tauris where she became priestess; escaped from there with Orestes.
Iris: Goddess of rainbow; messenger of Zeus and Hera.
Ismene: Daughter of Oedipus; sister of Antigone.
Iulus: Son of Aeneas.
Ixion: King of Lapithae; for making love to Hera he was bound to endlessly revolving wheel in Tartarus.
Janus: Roman god of gates and doors; represented with two opposite faces.
Jason: Son of Aeson; to gain throne of Ioclus from Pelias, went to Colchis and brought back Golden Fleece; married Medea; deserted her for Creüsa.
Jocasta: Wife of Laius; mother of Oedipus; unwittingly became wife of Oedipus; hanged herself when relationship was discovered.
Juno: See Hera.
Jupiter: See Zeus.
Juventas: See Hebe.
Lachesis: One of several Fates.
Laius: Father of Oedipus, by whom he was slain.
Laocoön: Priest of Apollo at Troy; warned against bringing wooden horse into Troy; destroyed with his two sons by serpents sent by Athena.
Lares: Roman ancestral spirits protecting descendants and homes.
Latona: See Leto.
Lavinia: Wife of Aeneas after defeat of Turnus.
Leander: Swam Hellespont nightly to see Hero; drowned in storm.
Leda: Mortal loved by Zeus in form of swan; mother of Helen, Clytemnestra, Dioscuri.
Lethe: One of several Rivers of Underworld.
Leto (Latona): Mother by Zeus of Artemis and Apollo.
Lucina: Roman goddess of childbirth; identified with Juno.
Lynceus: Son of Aegyptus; husband of Hypermnestra; slew Danaüs.
Maia: Daughter of Atlas; mother of Hermes.
Maia: One of several Pleiades.
Manes: Souls of dead Romans, particularly of ancestors.
Mars: See Ares.
Marsyas: Shepherd; challenged Apollo to music contest and lost; flayed alive by Apollo.
Medea: Sorceress; daughter of Aeëtes; helped Jason obtain Golden Fleece; when deserted by him for Creüsa, killed her children and Creüsa.
Medusa: One of several Gorgons. slain by Perseus, who cut off her head.
Megaera: One of several Furies.
Meleager: Son of Althaea; his life would last as long as brand burning at his birth; Althaea quenched and saved it but destroyed it when Meleager slew his uncles.
Melpomene: One of several Muses.
Memnon: Ethiopian king; made immortal by Zeus; son of Tithonus and Eos.
Menelaus: King of Sparta; son of Atreus; brother of Agamemnon; husband of Helen.
Mentor: Tutor of Telemachus and friend of Odysseus. In the Odyssey, on several occasions, Athena assumes form of Mentor to give advice to Telemachus or Odysseus
Mercury: See Hermes.
Merope: One of several Pleiades. Merope is said to have hidden in shame for loving a mortal.
Mezentius: Cruel Etruscan king; ally of Turnus against Aeneas; slain by Aeneas.
Midas: King of Phrygia; given gift of turning to gold all he touched.
Minerva: See Athena.
Minos: King of Crete; after death, one of three judges of dead in Hades; son of Zeus and Europa.
Minotaur: Monster, half man and half beast, kept in Labyrinth in Crete; slain by Theseus.
Mnemosyne: Goddess of memory; mother by Zeus of Muses.
Moirae: One of several Fates.
Momus: God of ridicule.
Morpheus: God of dreams.
Mors: See Thanatos.
Morta: One of several Fates.
Muses: Goddesses presiding over arts and sciences: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (lyric and love poetry), Euterpe (music), Melpomene (tragedy), Polymnia or Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), Terpsichore (choral dance and song), Thalia (comedy and bucolic poetry), Urania (astronomy); daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.
Naiads: Nymphs of waters, streams, and fountains.
Napaeae: Wood nymphs.
Narcissus: Beautiful youth loved by Echo; in punishment for not returning her love, he was made to fall in love with his image reflected in pool; pined away and became flower.
Nemesis: Goddess of retribution.
Neoptolemus: Son of Achilles; slew Priam; also known as Pyrrhus.
Neptune: See Poseidon.
Nereids: Sea nymphs; attendants on Poseidon.
Nestor: King of Pylos; noted for wise counsel in expedition against Troy.
Nike: Goddess of victory.
Niobe: Daughter of Tantalus; wife of Amphion; her children slain by Apollo and Artemis; changed to stone but continued to weep her loss.
Nona: One of several Fates.
Notus: One of several Winds.
Nox: See Nyx.
Nymphs: Beautiful maidens; minor deities of nature.
Nyx (Nox): Goddess of night.
Oceanids: Ocean nymphs; daughters of Oceanus.
Oceanus: Eldest of Titans; god of waters.
Odysseus (Ulysses): King of Ithaca; husband of Penelope; wandered ten years after fall of Troy before arriving home.
Oedipus: King of Thebes; son of Laius and Jocasta; unwittingly murdered Laius and married Jocasta; tore his eyes out when relationship was discovered.
Oenone: Nymph of Mount Ida; wife of Paris, who abandoned her; refused to cure him when he was poisoned by arrow of Philoctetes at Troy.
Ops: See Rhea.
Oreads: Mountain nymphs.
Orestes: Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; brother of Electra; slew Clytemnestra and Aegisthus; pursued by Furies until his purification by Apollo.
Orion: Hunter; slain by Artemis and made heavenly constellation.
Orpheus: Famed musician; son of Apollo and Muse Calliope; husband of Eurydice.
Pales: Roman goddess of shepherds and herdsmen.
Palinurus: Aeneas' pilot; fell overboard in his sleep and was drowned.
Pan (Faunus): God of woods and fields; part goat; son of Hermes.
Pandora: Opener of box containing human ills; mortal wife of Epimetheus.
Parcae: One of several Fates.
Paris: Son of Priam; gave apple of discord to Aphrodite, for which she enabled him to carry off Helen; slew Achilles at Troy; slain by Philoctetes.
Patroclus: Great friend of Achilles; wore Achilles' armor and was slain by Hector.
Pegasus: Winged horse that sprang from Medusa's body at her death; ridden by Bellerophon when he slew Chimera.
Pelias: King of Ioclus; seized throne from his brother Aeson; sent Jason for Golden Fleece; slain unwittingly by his daughters at instigation of Medea.
Pelops: Son of Tantalus; his father cooked and served him to gods; restored to life; Peloponnesus named for him.
Penates: Roman household gods.
Penelope: Wife of Odysseus; waited faithfully for him for many years while putting off numerous suitors.
Pephredo: One of several Graeae.
Periphetes: Giant; son of Hephaestus; slain by Theseus.
Persephone (Proserpine): Queen of infernal regions; daughter of Zeus and Demeter; wife of Pluto.
Perseus: Son of Zeus and Danaë; slew Medusa; rescued Andromeda from monster and married her.
Phaedra: Daughter of Minos; wife of Theseus; caused the death of her stepson, Hippolytus.
Phaethon: Son of Helios; drove his father's sun chariot and was struck down by Zeus before he set world on fire.
Philoctetes: Greek warrior who possessed Hercules' bow and arrows; slew Paris at Troy with poisoned arrow.
Phineus: Betrothed of Andromeda; tried to slay Perseus but turned to stone by Medusa's head.
Phlegethon: One of several Rivers of Underworld.
Phosphor: Morning star.
Phrixos: Brother of Helle; carried by ram of Golden Fleece to Colchis.
Pirithous: Son of Ixion; friend of Theseus; tried to carry off Persephone from Hades; bound to enchanted rock by Pluto.
Pleiades: Alcyone, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Merope, Sterope or Asterope, Taygeta; seven daughters of Atlas; transformed into heavenly constellation, of which six stars are visible (Merope is said to have hidden in shame for loving a mortal).
Pluto (Dis): God of Hades; brother of Zeus.
Plutus: God of wealth.
Pollux: One of Dioscuri.
Polyhymnia: See Polymnia.
Polymnia (Polyhymnia): One of several Muses.
Polynices: Son of Oedipus; he and his brother Eteocles killed each other; burial rite, forbidden by Creon, performed by his sister Antigone.
Polyphemus: Cyclops; devoured six of Odysseus's men; blinded by Odysseus.
Polyxena: Daughter of Priam; betrothed to Achilles, whom Paris slew at their betrothal; sacrificed to shade of Achilles.
Pomona: Roman goddess of fruits.
Pontus: Sea god; son of Gaea.
Poseidon (Neptune): God of sea; brother of Zeus.
Priam: King of Troy; husband of Hecuba; ransomed Hector's body from Achilles; slain by Neoptolemus.
Priapus: God of regeneration.
Procris: Wife of Cephalus, who accidentally slew her.
Procrustes: Giant; stretched or cut off legs of victims to make them fit iron bed; slain by Theseus.
Proetus: Husband of Anteia; sent Bellerophon to Iobates to be put to death.
Prometheus: Titan; stole fire from heaven for man. Zeus punished him by chaining him to rock in Caucasus where vultures devoured his liver daily.
Proserpine: See Persephone.
Proteus: Sea god; assumed various shapes when called on to prophesy.
Psyche: Beloved of Eros; punished by jealous Aphrodite; made immortal and united with Eros.
Pygmalion: King of Cyprus; carved ivory statue of maiden which Aphrodite gave life as Galatea.
Pyramus: Babylonian youth; made love to Thisbe through hole in wall; thinking Thisbe slain by lion, killed himself.
Python: Serpent born from slime left by Deluge; slain by Apollo.
Quirinus: Roman war god.
Remus: Brother of Romulus; slain by him.
Rhadamanthus: One of three judges of dead in Hades; son of Zeus and Europa.
Rhea (Ops): Daughter of Uranus and Gaea; wife of Cronus; mother of Zeus; identified with Cybele.
Rivers of Underworld. Acheron (woe), Cocytus (wailing), Lethe (forgetfulness), Phlegethon (fire), Styx (across which souls of dead were ferried by Charon).
Romulus: Founder of Rome; he and Remus suckled in infancy by she-wolf; slew Remus; deified by Romans.
Sarpedon: King of Lycia; son of Zeus and Europa; slain by Patroclus at Troy.
Saturn: See Cronus.
Satyrs: Hoofed demigods of woods and fields; companions of Dionysus.
Sciron: Robber; forced strangers to wash his feet, then hurled them into sea where tortoise devoured them; slain by Theseus.
Scylla: Female monster inhabiting rock opposite Charybdis; menaced passing sailors.
Selene: Goddess of moon.
Semele: Daughter of Cadmus; mother by Zeus of Dionysus; demanded Zeus appear before her in all his splendor and was destroyed by his lightning bolts.
Sibyis: Various prophetesses; most famous, Cumaean sibyl, accompanied Aeneas into Hades.
Sileni: Minor woodland deities similar to satyrs (singular: silenus). Sometimes Silenus refers to eldest of satyrs, son of Hermes or of Pan.
Silvanus: Roman god of woods and fields.
Sinis: Giant; bent pines, with which he hurled victims against side of mountain; slain by Theseus.
Sirens: Minor deities who lured sailors to destruction with their singing.
Sisyphus: King of Corinth; condemned in Tartarus to roll huge stone to top of hill; it always rolled back down again.
Sol: See Helios.
Somnus: See Hypnos.
Sphinx: Monster of Thebes; killed those who could not answer her riddle; slain by Oedipus. Name also refers to other monsters having body of lion, wings, and head and bust of woman.
Sterope (Asterope): One of several Pleiades.
Stheno: One of several Gorgons.
Styx: One of several Rivers of Underworld. The souls of the dead were ferried across the Styx by Charon.
Symplegades: Clashing rocks at entrance to Black Sea; Argo passed through, causing them to become forever fixed.
Syrinx: Nymph pursued by Pan; changed to reeds, from which he made his pipes.
Tantalus: Cruel king; father of Pelops and Niobe; condemned in Tartarus to stand chin-deep in lake surrounded by fruit branches; as he tried to eat or drink, water or fruit always receded.
Tartarus: Underworld below Hades; often refers to Hades.
Taygeta: One of several Pleiades.
Telemachus: Son of Odysseus; made unsuccessful journey to find his father.
Tellus: Roman goddess of earth.
Terminus: Roman god of boundaries and landmarks.
Terpsichore: One of several Muses.
Terra: Roman earth goddess.
Thalia: One of several Graces. Also one of several Muses.
Thanatos (Mors): God of death.
Themis: Titan goddess of laws of physical phenomena; daughter of Uranus; mother of Prometheus.
Theseus: Son of Aegeus; slew Minotaur; married and deserted Ariadne; later married Phaedra.
Thisbe: Beloved of Pyramus; killed herself at his death.
Thyestes: Brother of Atreus; Atreus killed three of his sons and served them to him at banquet.
Tiresias: Blind soothsayer of Thebes.
Tisiphone: One of several Furies.
Titans: Early gods from which Olympian gods were derived; children of Uranus and Gaea.
Tithonus: Mortal loved by Eos; changed into grasshopper.
Triton: Demigod of sea; son of Poseidon.
Turnus: King of Rutuli in Italy; betrothed to Lavinia; slain by Aeneas.
Ulysses: See Odysseus.
Urania: One of several Muses.
Uranus: Personification of Heaven; husband of Gaea; father of Titans; dethroned by his son Cronus.
Venus: See Aphrodite.
Vertumnus: Roman god of fruits and vegetables; husband of Pomona.
Vesta: See Hestia.
Vulcan: See Hephaestus.
Winds: Aeolus (keeper of winds), Boreas (Aquilo) (north wind), Eurus (east wind), Notus (Auster) (south wind), Zephyrus (Favonius) (west wind).
Zephyrus: One of several Winds.
Zeus (Jupiter): Chief of Olympian gods; son of Cronus and Rhea; husband of Hera.

The Olympian Gods and Goddesses
In Greek mythology, twelve gods and goddesses ruled the universe from atop Greece's Mount Olympus. These Olympians had come to power after their leader, Zeus, overthrew his father, Kronos, leader of the Titans. All the Olympians are related to one another. The Romans adopted most of these Greek gods and goddesses, but with new names.

Zeus (Roman name: Jupiter)
The most powerful of all, Zeus was god of the sky and the king of Olympus. His temper affected the weather, and he threw thunderbolts when he was unhappy. He was married to Hera but had many other lovers. His symbols include the oak and the thunderbolt.

Hera (Roman name: Juno)
Hera was goddess of marriage and the queen of Olympus. She was Zeus's wife and sister; many myths tell of how she sought revenge when Zeus betrayed her with his lovers. Her symbols include the peacock and the cow.

Artemis
Poseidon (Roman name: Neptune)
Poseidon was god of the sea. He was the most powerful god except for his brother, Zeus. He lived in a beautiful palace under the sea and caused earthquakes when he was in a temper. His symbols include the horse and the trident (a three-pronged pitchfork).

Hades (Roman name: Pluto)
Hades was king of the dead. He lived in the underworld, the heavily guarded land where he ruled over the dead. He was the brother of Zeus and the husband of Persephone, Demeter's daughter, whom he kidnapped.

Aphrodite (Roman name: Venus)
Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, and the protector of sailors. She may have been the daughter of Zeus and the Titan Dione, or she may have risen from the sea on a shell. Her symbols include the myrtle tree and the dove.

Apollo
Apollo was the god of music and healing. He was also an archer, and hunted with a silver bow. Apollo was the son of Zeus and the Titan Leto, and the twin of Artemis. His symbols include the laurel tree, the crow, and the dolphin.

Ares (Roman name: Mars)
Ares was the god of war. He was both cruel and a coward. Ares was the son of Zeus and Hera, but neither of his parents liked him. His symbols include the vulture and the dog, and he often carried a bloody spear.

Artemis (Roman name: Diana)
Artemis was the goddess of the hunt and the protector of women in childbirth. She hunted with silver arrows and loved all wild animals. Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin of Apollo. Her symbols include the cypress tree and the deer.

Athena (Roman name: Minerva)
Athena was the goddess of wisdom. She was also skilled in the art of war, and helped heroes such as Odysseus and Hercules. Athena sprang full-grown from the forehead of Zeus, and became his favorite child. Her symbols include the owl and the olive tree.

Hermes
Hephaestus (Roman name: Vulcan)
Hephaestus was the god of fire and the forge (a furnace in which metal is heated). Although he made armor and weapons for the gods, he loved peace. He was the son of Zeus and Hera and married Aphrodite. His symbols include the anvil and the forge.

Hestia (Roman name: Vesta)
Hestia was the goddess of the hearth (a fireplace at the center of the home). She was the most gentle of the gods, and does not play a role in many myths. Hestia was the sister of Zeus and the oldest of the Olympians. Fire is among her symbols.

Hermes (Roman name: Mercury)
Hermes was the messenger god, a trickster, and a friend to thieves. He was said to have invented boxing and gymnastics. He was the son of Zeus and the constellation Maia. The speediest of all, he wore winged sandals and a winged hat and carried a magic wand.

…also sometimes included:
Demeter (Roman name: Ceres)
Demeter was the goddess of the harvest. The word “cereal” comes from her Roman name. She was the sister of Zeus. Her daughter, Persephone, was forced to live with Hades each winter; at this time Demeter let no crops grow. Her symbols include wheat.

Dionysus (Roman name: Bacchus)
Dionysus was the god of wine, which he invented. In ancient Greece Dionysus was honored with springtime festivals that centered on theater. Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, a mortal. His symbols include ivy, the snake, and grapes.

Heroes in Greek Mythology
Achilles
Achilles was the strongest and most fearless warrior in the Greek war against the Trojans. As an infant his mother dipped him into the River Styx, which made him invulnerable everywhere but the heel by which she held him. For ten years Achilles was a great hero in the Trojan War. But in the end Paris, son of the Trojan king, fatally wounded Achilles in the heel. Today, the tendon that connects the calf muscles to the heel bone is called the Achilles tendon, and a small but dangerous weakness is known as an “Achilles heel.”

Hercules (Herakles)

Hercules
Brave and powerful Hercules is perhaps the most loved of all Greek heroes. The son of Zeus and Alcmene (a granddaughter of Perseus), Heracles grew up to become a famed warrior. But Zeus's jealous wife, Hera, made him temporarily insane, and he killed his wife and children. As punishment Heracles performed twelve seemingly impossible labors (see The Twelve Labors of Hercules), which have been the subject of countless works of art and drama. Heracles is often depicted wearing a lion skin and wielding a club.

Jason
Jason was the leader of the Argonauts, the 50 heroes who sailed in search of the Golden Fleece. Jason's uncle, Pelias, had stolen the kingdom that should belong to Jason. He promised to return it only if Jason would bring home the Golden Fleece—the wool from the magical winged ram that became the constellation Aries. On their journey Jason and the Argonauts faced down such dangers as the deadly singing Sirens. They ultimately captured the fleece with the help of the sorceress Medea, who became Jason's wife.

Odysseus (Ulysses)

Odysseus
King of Ithaca and a celebrated warrior, Odysseus helped the Greeks triumph in the Trojan War. Afterward he journeyed nearly ten years to return home to Ithaca and his wife Penelope. Along the way Odysseus's courage and cleverness saved him and his men from such monsters as the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, and Scylla and Charybdis. Back in Ithaca, Odysseus proved his identity to Penelope and once again ruled his homeland. These adventures are told in Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey.

Perseus
The son of Zeus and Danaë, Perseus completed dangerous feats with his quick thinking and talents as a warrior. Most famous was his slaying of the Gorgon Medusa. Because looking directly at the monstrous Medusa would turn a man to stone, Perseus killed her while watching her reflection in a mirror. After beheading the Gorgon with his sword he kept her head in his satchel. Later, to save the princess Andromeda from being eaten by a sea monster, Perseus pulled out Medusa's head and turned the creature to stone.

Theseus
Theseus was known for his triumph over numerous monsters, especially the Minotaur, which lived in a labyrinth on the island of Crete. Every year the people of Athens had been forced to send fourteen young people for the Minotaur to eat alive. But Theseus, using a ball of magic thread from the princess Ariadne, found his way in and out of the labyrinth and killed the beast. Theseus was the son of either Aegeus, king of Athens, or the sea god Poseidon. In later life he became king of Athens and a famous warrior.

The Twelve Labors of Hercules
Hercules performed twelve labors given him by King Eurystheus of Tiryns. For twelve years, he traveled all over to complete these incredible tasks. NOTE: Because different ancient poets gave their own accounts of Hercules's labors, some details may vary.

One: Kill the Nemean Lion
This monster of a lion had a hide was so tough that no arrow could pierce it. Hercules stunned the beast with his olive-wood club and then strangled it with his bare hands. It is said that he skinned the lion, using the lion's sharp claws, and ever after wore its hide.

Two: Kill the Lernean Hydra
The evil, snakelike Hydra had nine heads. If one got hurt, two would grow in its place. But Hercules quickly sliced off the heads, while his charioteer, Iolaus, sealed the wounds with a torch. Hercules made his arrows poisonous by dipping them in the Hydra's blood.

Three: Capture the Cerynian Hind
The goddess Artemis loved and protected this stubborn little deer, which had gold horns. Hercules found it a challenge to capture the delicate hind without hurting it (and making Artemis angry). After following the hind for an entire year, he safely carried it away.

Four: Capture the Erymanthian Boar
The people of Mount Erymanthus lived in fear of this deadly animal. Hercules chased the wild boar up the mountain and into a snowdrift. He then took it in a net and brought it to King Eurystheus, who was so frightened of the beast that he hid in a huge bronze jar.

Five: Clean the Augean Stables
Thousands of cows lived in these stables belonging to King Augeas. They had not been cleaned in 30 years, but Hercules was told to clean them completely in a single day. To do so he made two rivers bend so that they flowed into the stables, sweeping out the filth.

Six: Kill the Stymphalian Birds
These murderous birds lived around Lake Stymphalos. Their claws and beaks were sharp as metal and their feathers flew like darts. Hercules scared them out of their nests with a rattle and then killed them with the poison arrows he had made from the Hydra's blood.

Seven: Capture the Cretan Bull
This savage bull, kept by King Minos of Crete, was said to be insane and breathe fire. Hercules wrestled the mad beast to the ground and brought it back to King Eurystheus. Unfortunately, the king set it free, and it roamed Greece, causing terror wherever it went.

Eight: Capture the Horses of Diomedes
King Diomedes, leader of the Bistones, fed his bloodthirsty horses on human flesh. Hercules and his men fought and killed King Diomedes and fed the king to his horses. This made the horses tame, so that Hercules was able to lead them to King Eurystheus.

Nine: Take the Girdle of the Amazon Queen Hippolyte
Hercules went to the land of the Amazons, where the queen welcomed him and agreed to give him her girdle for Eurystheus's daughter. But Hera spread the rumor that Hercules came as an enemy. In the end he had to conquer the Amazons and steal the golden belt.

Ten: Capture the Cattle of Geryon
Geryon, a winged monster with three human bodies, had a herd of beautiful red cattle. He guarded his prized herd with the help of a giant and a vicious two-headed dog. Hercules killed Geryon, the giant, and the dog and brought the cattle to King Eurystheus.

Eleven: Take the Golden Apples of the Hesperides
The Hesperides were nymphs. In their garden grew golden apples protected by Ladon, a dragon with a hundred heads. Hercules struck a bargain with Atlas, who held up the earth. Hercules shouldered the earth while Atlas, the nymphs' father, fetched the apples.

Twelve: Capture Cerberus
Hercules was ordered to capture Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, without using weapons. Hercules wrestled down the dog's wild heads, and it agreed to go with him to King Eurystheus. Cerberus was soon returned unharmed to the underworld.

Monsters in Greek Mythology
Argus
Argus may have had as many as one hundred eyes, which were located all over his body. Hera employed him as a guard. He was killed by Hermes. Afterward, Hera put Argus's eyes in the tail of the peacock, her favorite bird.

Cerberus
Cerberus was a huge and powerful three-headed dog. He was owned by Hades, god of the dead, who used the fearsome hound to guard the entrance to the underworld. In his final labor, Hercules went to the underworld and kidnapped Cerberus.

Cyclopes
Each of the Cyclopes was gigantic and had a single eye in the middle of its forehead. The Cyclopes made lightning and thunderbolts for Zeus to use. The brutal Polyphemus, a Cyclops and a son of Poseidon, lived on an island, where he was blinded by Odysseus.

Gorgons
The Gorgons were horrifyingly ugly monsters who lived at the edge of the world. Their hair was made of serpents, and one look from a Gorgon's eyes would turn a man to stone. Perseus killed the Gorgon Medusa by beheading her while looking only at her reflection.

The Hydra
Hydra
The Hydra was a massive and poisonous serpent with nine heads. Every time one head was injured, another two grew in its place. Hercules sought out the monster in its dark marsh and succeeded in destroying it.

Minotaur
The Minotaur was a man-eating monster with the head of a bull. King Minos kept it hidden in a labyrinth (a maze) in Knossos, on the island of Crete, where he used it to frighten his enemies. Theseus killed the Minotaur.

The Minotaur
Scylla and Charybdis
The powerful monsters Scylla and Charybdis lived together in a sea cave. Scylla had many fierce dog heads and ate sailors alive; Charybdis created whirlpools by sucking in and spitting out seawater. Both Jason and Odysseus safely traveled by these monsters.

Sirens
The Sirens were giant, winged creatures with the heads of women. They lived on rocks on the sea, where their beautiful singing lured sailors to shipwreck. Odysseus filled his sailors' ears with wax so that they might sail safely past the Sirens.

The Nine Muses
The Nine Muses were Greek goddesses who ruled over the arts and sciences and offered inspiration in those subjects. They were the daughters of Zeus, lord of all gods, and Mnemosyne, who represented memory. Memory was important for the Muses because in ancient times, when there were no books, poets had to carry their work in their memories.

Calliope was the muse of epic poetry.

Clio was the muse of history.

Erato was the muse of love poetry.

Euterpe was the muse of music.

Melpomene was the muse of tragedy.

Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry.

Terpsichore was the muse of dance.

Thalia was the muse of comedy.

Urania was the muse of astronomy.

Norse Mythology
Aesir: Chief gods of Asgard.
Andvari: Dwarf; robbed of gold and magic ring by Loki.
Angerbotha (Angrbotha): Giantess; mother by Loki of Fenrir, Hel, and Midgard serpent.
Asgard (Asgarth): Abode of gods.
Ask (Aske, Askr): First man; created by Odin, Hoenir, and Lothur.
Asynjur: Goddesses of Asgard.
Atli: Second husband of Gudrun; invited Gunnar and Hogni to his court, where they were slain; slain by Gudrun.
Audhumia (Audhumbla): Cow that nourished Ymir; created Buri by licking ice cliff.
Balder (Baldr, Baldur): God of light, spring, peace, joy; son of Odin; slain by Hoth at instigation of Loki.
Bifrost: Rainbow bridge connecting Midgard and Asgard.
Bragi (Brage): God of poetry; husband of Ithunn.
Branstock: Great oak in hall of Volsungs; into it, Odin thrust Gram, which only Sigmund could draw forth.
Brynhild: Valkyrie; wakened from magic sleep by Sigurd; married Gunnar; instigated death of Sigurd; killed herself and was burned on pyre beside Sigurd.
Bur (Bor): Son of Buri; father of Odin, Hoenir, and Lothur.
Buri (Bori): Progenitor of gods; father of Bur; created by Audhumla.
Embla: First woman; created by Odin, Hoenir, and Lothur.
Fafnir: Son of Rodmar, whom he slew for gold in Otter's skin; in form of dragon, guarded gold; slain by Sigurd.
Fenrir: Wolf; offspring of Loki; swallows Odin at Ragnarok and is slain by Vitharr.
Forseti: Son of Balder.
Frey (Freyr): God of fertility and crops; son of Njorth; originally one of Vanir.
Freya (Freyja): Goddess of love and beauty; sister of Frey; originally one of Vanir.
Frigg (Frigga): Goddess of sky; wife of Odin.
Garm: Watchdog of Hel; slays, and is slain by, Tyr at Ragnarok.
Gimle: Home of blessed after Ragnarok.
Giuki: King of Nibelungs; father of Gunnar, Hogni, Guttorm, and Gudrun.
Glathsehim (Gladsheim): Hall of gods in Asgard.
Gram (meaning “Angry”): Sigmund's sword; rewelded by Regin; used by Sigurd to slay Fafnir.
Greyfell: Sigmund's horse; descended from Sleipnir.
Grimhild: Mother of Gudrun; administered magic potion to Sigurd which made him forget Brynhild.
Gudrun: Daughter of Giuki; wife of Sigurd; later wife of Atli and Jonakr.
Gunnar: Son of Giuki; in his semblance Sigurd won Brynhild for him; slain at hall of Atli.
Guttorm: Son of Giuki; slew Sigurd at Brynhild's request.
Heimdall (Heimdallr): Guardian of Asgard.
Hel: Goddess of dead and queen of underworld; daughter of Loki.
Hiordis: Wife of Sigmund; mother of Sigurd.
Hoenir: One of creators of Ask and Embla; son of Bur.
Hogni: Son of Giuki; slain at hall of Atli.
Hoth (Hoder, Hodur): Blind god of night and darkness; slayer of Balder at instigation of Loki.
Ithunn (Ithun, Iduna): Keeper of golden apples of youth; wife of Bragi.
Jonakr: Third husband of Gudrun.
Jormunrek: Slayer of Swanhild; slain by sons of Gudrun.
Jotunnheim (Jotunheim): Abode of giants.
Lif and Lifthrasir: First man and woman after Ragnarok.
Loki: God of evil and mischief; instigator of Balder's death.
Lothur (Lodur): One of creators of Ask and Embla.
Midgard (Midgarth): Abode of mankind; the earth.
Midgard Serpent: Sea monster; offspring of Loki; slays, and is slain by, Thor at Ragnarok.
Mimir: Giant; guardian of well in Jotunnheim at root of Yggdrasill; knower of past and future.
Mjollnir: Magic hammer of Thor.
Nagifar: Ship to be used by giants in attacking Asgard at Ragnarok; built from nails of dead men.
Nanna: Wife of Balder.
Nibelungs: Dwellers in northern kingdom ruled by Giuki.
Niflheim (Nifelheim): Outer region of cold and darkness; abode of Hel.
Njorth: Father of Frey and Freya; originally one of Vanir.
Norns: Demigoddesses of fate: Urth (Urdur) (past), Verthandi (Verdandi) (present), Skuld (future).
Odin (Othin): Head of Aesir; creator of world with Vili and Ve; equivalent to Woden (Wodan, Wotan) in Teutonic mythology.
Otter: Son of Rodmar; slain by Loki; his skin filled with gold hoard of Andvari to appease Rodmar.
Ragnarok: Final destruction of present world in battle between gods and giants; some minor gods will survive, and Lif and Lifthrasir will repeople world.
Regin: Blacksmith; son of Rodmar; foster-father of Sigurd.
Rerir: King of Huns; son of Sigi.
Rodmar: Father of Regin, Otter, and Fafnir; demanded Otter's skin be filled with gold; slain by Fafnir, who stole gold.
Sif: Wife of Thor.
Siggeir: King of Goths; husband of Signy; he and his sons slew Volsung and his sons, except Sigmund; slain by Sigmund and Sinflotli.
Sigi: King of Huns; son of Odin.
Sigmund: Son of Volsung; brother of Signy, who bore him Sinflotli; husband of Hiordis, who bore him Sigurd.
Signy: Daughter of Volsung; sister of Sigmund; wife of Siggeir; mother by Sigmund of Sinflotli.
Sigurd: Son of Sigmund and Hiordis; wakened Brynhild from magic sleep; married Gudrun; slain by Guttorm at instigation of Brynhild.
Sigyn: Wife of Loki.
Sinflotli: Son of Sigmund and Signy.
Skuld: One of several Norns.
Sleipnir (Sleipner): Eight-legged horse of Odin.
Surt (Surtr): Fire demon; slays Frey at Ragnarok.
Svartalfaheim: Abode of dwarfs.
Swanhild: Daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun; slain by Jormunrek.
Thor: God of thunder; oldest son of Odin; equivalent to Germanic deity Donar.
Tyr: God of war; son of Odin; equivalent to Tiu in Teutonic mythology.
Ull (Ullr): Son of Sif; stepson of Thor.
Urth: One of several Norns.
Valhalla (Valhall): Great hall in Asgard where Odin received souls of heroes killed in battle.
Vali: Odin's son: Ragnarok survivor.
Valkyries: Virgins, messengers of Odin, who selected heroes to die in battle and took them to Valhalla; generally considered as nine in number.
Vanir: Early race of gods; three survivors, Njorth, Frey, and Freya, are associated with Aesir.
Ve: Brother of Odin; one of creators of world.
Verthandi: One of several Norns.
Vili: Brother of Odin; one of creators of world.
Vingolf: Abode of goddesses in Asgard.
Vitharr (Vithar): Son of Odin; survivor of Ragnarok.
Volsung: Descendant of Odin, and father of Signy, Sigmund; his descendants were called Volsungs.
Yggdrasill: Giant ash tree springing from body of Ymir and supporting universe; its roots extended to Asgard, Jotunnheim, and Niffheim.
Ymir (Ymer): Primeval frost giant killed by Odin, Vili, and Ve; world created from his body; also, from his body sprang Yggdrasill.

Egyptian Mythology
Aaru: Abode of the blessed dead.
Amen (Amon, Ammdn): One of chief Theban deities; united with sun god under form of Amen-Ra; husband of Mut.
Amenti: Region of dead where souls were judged by Osiris.
Anubis: Guide of souls to Amenti; son of Osiris; jackal-headed.
Apis: Sacred bull, an embodiment of Ptah; identified with Osiris as Osiris-Apis or Serapis.
Geb (Keb, Seb): Earth god; father of Osiris; represented with goose on head.
Hathor (Athor): Goddess of love and mirth; cow-headed.
Horus: God of day; son of Osiris and Isis; hawk-headed.
Isis: Goddess of motherhood and fertility; sister and wife of Osiris.
Khepera: God of morning sun.
Khnemu (Khnum, Chnuphis, Chnemu, Chnum): Ram-headed god.
Khonsu (Khensu, Khuns): Son of Amen and Mut.
Mentu (Ment): Solar deity, sometimes considered god of war; falcon-headed.
Min (Khem, Chem): Principle of physical life.
Mut (Maut): Wife of Amen.
Nephthys: Goddess of the dead; sister and wife of Set.
Nu: Chaos from which world was created, personified as a god.
Nut: Goddess of heavens; consort of Geb.
Osiris: God of underworld and judge of dead; son of Geb and Nut; brother and husband of Isis.
Ptah (Phtha): Chief deity of Memphis.
Ra: God of the Sun, the supreme god; son of Nut; Pharaohs claimed descent from him; represented as lion, cat, or falcon.
Serapis: God uniting attributes of Osiris and Apis.
Set (Seth): God of darkness or evil; brother and enemy of Osiris; brother and husband of Nephthys.
Shu: Solar deity; son of Ra and Hathor.
Tem (Atmu, Atum, Tum): Solar deity.
Thoth (Dhouti): God of wisdom and magic; scribe of gods; ibis-headed.

American Indian Myths
American Indian tribes share many myths. If a myth is exclusive to one tribe, the tribe is listed in parenthesis.

The Great Spirit in some form or name is found in most American Indian beliefs. It is the unknown power that is found in everything—the air, a rock, the sky. The Great Spirit is often seen as the great creator of life and the universe, aided by other spirits who are in charge of more specific things, such as stars, water, or trees. The Cheyenne call the Great Spirit Heammawihio; the Shawnee, Finisher; and the Algonquin, Gitche Manitou.

Coyote was a popular spirit among western tribes such as the Navajo, Zuni, Sioux, and Chinook. A sly trickster, he made life more interesting for people. Coyote was responsible for sorrow and death, but also for the creation of humans and the Milky Way. There are many stories of Coyote’s mischievous trickery and his contributions to the world.

Raven seemed to have his beak into everything, and like Coyote, was somewhat wily. He could change into a bird, a human or an animal. Raven could bring both good and evil. Always hungry, his search for food often got him into a lot of trouble. Raven was found mainly in Pacific Northwest and southeastern Alaska tribes.

Skywoman (Iroquois) fell through a hole in the sky to a dark watery Earth populated only by animals. Birds caught her and put her on a giant turtle’s back. The turtle grew bigger and became the land. The hole Skywoman fell through brought light to the world, and the beginning of Earth as we know it.

Kachinas (Hopi) are spirits that lived in and controlled everything—the sky, water, plants, animals. The kachinas protected humans and brought them good fortune. Today, the Hopi give their children kachina dolls to teach them about different spirits.

Aningan (Eskimo) is the most important Eskimo god and the Moon spirit. He was a hunter and he also chased his sister, the Sun, around the North Pole during the brief Arctic summer. She was unable to go over the horizon and the Sun never set.

The Breathmaker (Seminole) or Creator, made humans out of clay. He also blew across the heavens and created the Milky Way. When a good Seminole died the Big Dipper becoame a boat and sailed the soul across the Milky Way to the City in the Sky.

Windigo (Ojibwa, Algonquin) was a huge evil demon who wandered the winter woods in search of humans to eat. In a sort of werewolf or vampire way, if a person was bitten by Windigo, he turned into one.

about Words

2009-07-15T16:24:00.001-07:00

A Selection of Mnemonics
As explained in What are Mnemonics? there is a number of distinct families into which mnemonic devices fall. Broadly speaking those on this website are: Rhymes and Catch Phrases, Spelling Acronyms, and List Order Acronyms. Examples of all can be found below. A separate section is dedicated to mnemonics used to memorise numbers.

Rhymes and Catch Phrases
The following rhyming phrase helps people to remember how to spell such difficult words as receive.

I before E, except after C.
Unfortunately this rule does not always apply. One common exception is the word weird, which has prompted some people to use the extended version of this mnemonic:

I before E, except after C.
And "weird" is just weird.
Sadly there are many, many more exceptions. Nevertheless this remains a very popular memory aid for spelling. The following adaptation is somewhat better:

I before E, except after C.
Or when sounded "A" as in neighbor and weigh.
Just don't rely on this one for spelling words like weir and seize!

The following mnemonic is used by pilots. If temperature or pressure drops, you will be lower (in altitude) than the aircraft's instruments suggest if they are left uncorrected. On the other hand, a rise in temperature or pressure will result in the opposite effect.

High to Low; look out below.
Low to High; clear blue sky.
This is somewhat reminiscent of these popular rhymes which guide people on what kind of weather red skies and rainbows generally herald depending on the time of day at which they are seen.

Red sky at night: shepherd's delight.
Red sky in the morning: shepherd's warning.
Rainbow in the morning: travellers take warning.
Rainbow at night: travellers' delight.

Rainbows indicate humid air. A morning rainbow is seen in the West – the direction from which storms generally come – and so often appears before bad weather. Evening rainbows, which appear in the East, usually indicate the passing of stormy weather.

Spelling Acronyms
The following mnemonics are sentences or phrases in which the initial letters of the words spell out a word which many people find rather tricky to spell.

BECAUSE
Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants
ARITHMETIC
A Rat In The House May Eat The Ice Cream

GEOGRAPHY
General Eisenhower's Oldest Girl Rode A Pony Home Yesterday

RHYTHM
Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move

NECESSARY
Not Every Cat Eats Sardines (Some Are Really Yummy)

ARGUMENT
A Rude Girl Undresses; My Eyes Need Taping!

OCEAN
Only Cats' Eyes Are Narrow

And a neat way to remember how to spell POTASSIUM: just remember one tea, two sugars. You can use a similar aide memoire to prevent confusion between DESERTS (like the Sahara) and DESSERTS (like Tiramisu) by remembering that the sweet one has two sugars.

List Order Acronyms
This is certainly one of the most popular mnemonic techniques.

Order of colours in the rainbow, or visual spectrum:
(Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet)
Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.
Order of taxonomy in biology:
(Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)
Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach.

Order of geological time periods:
(Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent)
Cows Often Sit Down Carefully. Perhaps Their Joints Creak?
Persistent Early Oiling Might Prevent Painful Rheumatism.

Order of Mohs hardness scale, from 1 to 10:
(Talc, Gypsum, Calcite, Fluorite, Apatite, Orthoclase feldspar, Quartz, Topaz, Corundum, Diamond)
Toronto Girls Can Flirt, And Other Queer Things Can Do.

The order of sharps in music, called the "circle of fifths":
(F, C, G, D, A, E, B)
Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle.
And in reverse for flat keys the mnemonic can be neatly reversed:
Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father.

The notes represented by the lines on the treble clef stave (bottom to top):
(E, G, B, D, F)
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
And the notes represented by the spaces between the lines:
(F, A, C, E)
Furry Animals Cook Excellently. Or just the word FACE

The notes represented by the lines on the bass clef stave (bottom to top):
(G, B, D, F, A)
Good Boys Do Fine, Always.
And the notes represented by the spaces between the lines:
(A, C, E, G)
All Cows Eat Grass.

The order of planets in average distance from the Sun:
(Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)
My Very Easy Method: Just Set Up Nine Planets.

More Mnemonics
Do you know any good mnemonics which you think belong on this page. If you'd like to share them with us, then we'd love to hear from you.
Also look at our mnemonics to remember numbers, our explanation of mnemonic devices, and our selection of mnemonics books in the online wordplay book store.

Spooner's Spoonerisms
fighting a liar lighting a fire
you hissed my mystery lecture you missed my history lecture
cattle ships and bruisers battle ships and cruisers
nosey little cook cosy little nook
a blushing crow a crushing blow
tons of soil sons of toil
our queer old Dean our dear old Queen
we'll have the hags flung out we'll have the flags hung out
you've tasted two worms you've wasted two terms
our shoving leopard our loving shepherd
a half-warmed fish a half-formed wish
is the bean dizzy? is the Dean busy?

More Funny Spoonerisms
know your blows - blow your nose
go and shake a tower go and take a shower
tease my ears ease my tears
nicking your pose picking your nose
you have very mad banners you have very bad manners
lack of pies pack of lies
it's roaring with pain it's pouring with rain
sealing the hick healing the sick
go help me sod so help me God
pit nicking nit picking
bowel feast foul beast
I'm a damp stealer I'm a stamp dealer
hypodemic nurdle hypodermic needle
wave the sails save the whales
chipping the flannel on TV flipping the channel on TV
mad bunny bad money
I'm shout of the hour I'm out of the shower
lead of spite speed of light
this is the pun fart this is the fun part
I hit my bunny phone I hit my funny bone
flutter by butterfly
bedding wells wedding bells
I must mend the sail I must send the mail
cop porn popcorn
it crawls through the fax it falls through the cracks
my zips are lipped my lips are zipped
bat flattery flat battery
would you like a nasal hut? would you like a hazel nut?
puke on coupon
belly jeans jelly beans
eye ball bye all
fight in your race right in your face
ready as a stock steady as a rock
no tails toe nails
hiss and lear listen here
soul of ballad bowl of salad

Cack of Pards Spoonerisms

Two of Hearts 2? Who of tarts?
Four of Hearts 4? Whore of farts
Eight of Hearts 8? Hate of Arts
Ten of Hearts 10? Hen of tarts
Ace of Spades A? Space of aids
Four of Spades 4? Spore of fades
Eight of Spades 8? Spate of AIDS
Four of Diamonds 4? Door of fireman's
Five of Diamonds 5? Dive of fireman's
Six of Diamonds 6? Dicks of Simon's
Two of Clubs 2? Clue of tubs
Five of Clubs 5? Clive of Fubbs

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Do you remember – when you were a child – learning (then gleefully reciting) what you thought was the longest word in the English language? Was it ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM? Or the similarly long SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS?
There are longer ones...

However, there is no easy answer that we can give when our visitors ask us for the longest word in the English language. Most very long words only occur in one or two dictionaries, and often they are debatably not words at all. For example, ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM has possibly never really been used to mean "the belief which opposes removing the tie between church and state." Certainly 99 in 100 times it is used as an example of a long word. And who says you can't put NON– (for example) on the beginning to make it even longer?

This problem is even more evident in chemical names. Most chemicals are named using a systematic naming system which methodically describes the molecule's structure. Some molecules, such as proteins, are huge, so it is possible to come up with genuine words containing millions of letters. But of course no chemist uses these really long names in practice.

Here we look at some of the longest words in English dictionaries, and discuss whether they should be considered to be real words. Interesting long chemical terms and place names are listed separately afterwards. The red numbers indicate the length (number of letters) of the word that follows.

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Longest Words
(45) PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (also spelled PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOKONIOSIS) = a lung disease caused by breathing in particles of siliceous volcanic dust.
This is the longest word in any English dictionary. However, it was coined by Everett Smith, the President of The National Puzzlers' League, in 1935 purely for the purpose of inventing a new "longest word". The Oxford English Dictionary described the word as factitious. Nevertheless it also appears in the Webster's, Random House, and Chambers dictionaries.
(37) HEPATICOCHOLANGIOCHOLECYSTENTEROSTOMIES = a surgical creation of a connection between the gall bladder and a hepatic duct and between the intestine and the gall bladder.
This is the longest word in Gould's Medical Dictionary.

(34) SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS = song title from the Walt Disney movie Mary Poppins.
It is in the Oxford English Dictionary.

"But then one day I learned a word
That saved me achin' nose,
The biggest word you ever 'eard,
And this is 'ow it goes:
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!"
(30) HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPEDALIAN = pertaining to a very long word.
From Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words.

(29) FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION = an estimation of something as worthless.
This is the longest word in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Interestingly the most common letter in English, E, does not appear in this word at all, whilst I occurs a total of nine times. The word dates back to 1741. The 1992 Guinness Book of World Records calls floccinaucinihilipilification the longest real word in the Oxford English Dictionary, and refers to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis as the longest made-up one.

(28) ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM = the belief which opposes removing the tie between church and state.
Probably the most popular of the "longest words" in recent decades.

(27) HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS = honorableness.
The word first appeared in English in 1599, and in 1721 was listed by Bailey's Dictionary as the longest word in English. It was used by Shakespeare in Love's Labor's Lost (Costard; Act V, Scene I):

"O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.
I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon."
Shakespeare does not use any other words over 17 letters in length.

(27) ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHICALLY
The longest unhyphenated word in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th Ed.), joint with ethylenediaminetetraacetate (see below).

(27) ANTITRANSUBSTANTIATIONALIST = one who doubts that consecrated bread and wine actually change into the body and blood of Christ.

(21) DISPROPORTIONABLENESS and (21) INCOMPREHENSIBILITIES
These are described by the 1992 Guinness Book of World Records as the longest words in common usage.

Some say SMILES is the longest word because there is a MILE between the first and last letters!

Place Names
There are many long place names around the world. Here are a few of the largest.
(85) TAUMATAWHAKATANGIHANGAKOAUAUOTAMATEATURIPUKAKAPIKIMAUNGAHORONUKUPOKAIWHENUAKITANATAHU
A hill in New Zealand. This Maori name was in general use, but is now generally abbreviated to Taumata. The name means: the summit of the hill, where Tamatea, who is known as the land eater, slid down, climbed up and swallowed mountains, played on his nose flute to his loved one.

(66) GORSAFAWDDACHAIDRAIGODANHEDDOGLEDDOLONPENRHYNAREURDRAETHCEREDIGION
A town in Wales. The name means: the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan bay.

(58) LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH
A town in North Wales. The name roughly translates as: St. Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave.

(41) CHARGOGAGOGMANCHARGOGAGOGCHARBUNAGUNGAMOG
Another name for Lake Webster in Massachusetts. Probably the longest name in the United States.

(23) NUNATHLOOGAGAMIUTBINGOI
The Eskimo name for some dunes in Alaska,

Consecutive Letters
Here is a selection of words interesting because of their letter sequences: consonant strings, rows of dots, alphabetic sequences, double letters, triple letters, and quadruple letter sequences. See also these sections: longest word, vowel records, amazing words, Scrabble game records, and Angry, Hungry, and GRY words.

Consonant Strings
Some common words with an uninterrupted string of five consonants are BACKSPLASH, BACKSTRETCH, BACKSTROKE, BIRTHPLACE, BREASTSTROKE, DOWNSTREAM, DOWNTHRUST, DUMBSTRUCK, EIGHTHS, ERSTWHILE, HEARTTHROB, LENGTHS, LIGHTPROOF, MATCHSTICK, NIGHTCLOTHES, NIGHTCLUB, NIGHTDRESS, POSTSCRIPT, STRENGTHS, THOUSANDTHS, THUMBSCREW, TWELFTHS, WARMTHS, and WITCHCRAFT. ANGSTS is the shortest word with five consonants in a row.
These words have six consecutive consonants: ARCHCHRONICLER, CATCHPHRASE, ESCHSCHOLTZIA, HANTZSCHIA, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, LATCHSTRING, POSTPHTHISIC, and WELTSCHMERZ. A popular staple food in Ukraine is a beetroot soup called borsch, which occurs in English dictionaries with a variety of spellings including borshch and borscht, giving rise to plurals containing a string of six consonants: BORSHCHS and BORSCHTS.

HIRSCHSPRUNG'S (DISEASE) has seven consecutive consonants, as does SCHTSCHUROWSKIA. The shortest such word is TSKTSKS. All of these words can be found in major English dictionaries.

Going Dotty
Beijing and Fiji have three dotted letters in a row. Other such words are remijia, bogijiab, pirijiri, kharijite, gaijin, Hajji, and hijinks. Ujiji has a string of four dots.
A property development company in the Canadian territory of Nunavut is the Katujjijiit Development Corporation, with six consecutive dotted letters.

In Hungarian, jöjjön (meaning "he should come") has seven dots in a row, if you allow diacritical marks. Incredibly, Finnish has a word with a continuous sequence of 14 dots: pääjääjää (meaning "the main stayer," partitive case).

Alphabetic Sequences
The alphabetical sequence –RSTU– is contained in OVERSTUFF, OVERSTUDIOUS, OVERSTUNK, UNDERSTUFF, UNDERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUD, OVERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUFF, UNDERSTUDY, and BIERSTUBE.
The only other four-letter alphabetical sequence found in English is –MNOP–, which is found, for example, in these words: CREMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPAEDIC, GYMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPLAST, LIMNOPHILE, LIMNOPHORA, LIMNOPHORID, LIMNOPLANKTON, SEMNOPITHECINE, SOMNOPATHY, and THAMNOPHILE.

If the alphabet is treated as a continuous loop, however, there is also –YZAB– in ANALYZABLE.

Double Letter Sequences
Here are some examples words containing double letters, for each letter of the alphabet: AARDVARK, ABBOT, ACCENT, ADD, FEED, OFF, EGG, WITHHOLD, SKIING, AVIJJA, BOOKKEEPER, ILL, IMMUNE, ANNOY, HOOP, APPLE, HUQQA, ARRAY, KISS, LITTLE, VACUUM, SAVVY, SLOWWORM, WAXXENN, CUBBYYEW, and DAZZLE.

Triple Letter Sequences
The following words contain triple letter sequences, uninterrupted by spaces or hyphens. They all appear in at least one English dictionary, but usually as an old spelling or rare variant: AAADONTA, FLYING JIBBBOOM, PEEENT, FREEER, FREEEST, ISHIII, FRILLLESS, WALLLESS, LAPAROHYSTEROSALPINGOOOPHORECTOMY, BRRR, GODDESSSHIP, COUNTESSSHIP, DUCHESSSHIP, GOVERNESSSHIP, HOSTESSSHIP, VERTUUUS, UUULA, and YAYYY.

Quadruple Letter Sequences
Amazingly, there are some sequences of four repeated letters in words in English dictionaries.
The first citation for "iiwi" in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1779: "The birds of these islands are as beautiful as any we have seen... its native name is EEEEVE."

ESSSSE (an obsolete word meaning ashes) is in the second edition of the OED.

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH, a town in North Wales, has been described here as having four consecutive Ls. However, in the Welsh alphabet, LL is one letter, entirely separate from L. So in fact this is a double LL rather than a quadruple LLLL as it appears in the English spelling.

BRRRR (an interjection expressive of shivering) is also in the second edition of the OED.

Vowels
Here is a collection of words notable for their vowels. Some have many, some have few; some contain them all, some contain none.
Note that we are talking about the five true vowels in the English alphabet: A, E, I, O, and U. Sometimes the consonant Y may be pronounced as a vowel, as may other letters in rare words, such as W in some words of Welsh origin.

Many Vowels
Words (found in major English dictionaries) consisting entirely of vowels include AA (a type of lava), AE, AI, AIEEE, IAO, OII, EAU, EUOUAE, OE, OO, I, O, A, IO, and UOIAUAI, the last of these being the longest vowel-only word (seven letters).
OUENOUAOU (a stream in the Philippines) has nine letters but only one consonant. It is the longest known place name with only a single consonant.

The English dictionary word with the most consecutive vowels (six) is EUOUAE. Words with five consecutive vowels include QUEUEING, AIEEE, COOEEING, MIAOUED, ZAOUIA, JUSSIEUEAN, ZOOEAE, ZOAEAE. The Hawaiian word HOOIAIOIA (meaning certified) has eight consecutive vowels and is listed in the 1976 Guinness Book of World Records. Allowing proper nouns, URU-EU-UAU-UAU (a language of Brazil) has nine vowels in a row, ignoring hyphens.

HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS is the longest word consisting entirely of alternating vowels and consonants. Other such words are ALUMINOSILICATES, EPICORACOHUMERALER, HEXOSAMINIDASES, ICULANIBOKOLAS, PARAROSANILINES, PARASITOLOGICAL, VERISIMILITUDES. GORAN IVANESEVIC (a top tennis player) is the longest known celebrity name that alternates consonants and vowels. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES is the longest name of a country consisting of alternating vowels and consonants.

Few Vowels
The longest common word without any of the five vowels is RHYTHMS, but there are longer rare words: SYMPHYSY, NYMPHLY, GYPSYRY, GYPSYFY, and TWYNDYLLYNGS. WPPWRMWSTE and GLYCYRRHIZIN are long words with very few vowels.
ASTHMA begins and ends with a vowel and has no other vowels in between. Some less common long words with this property are ISTHMI (alternate plural of isthmus), APHTHA, and ELTCHI.

The longest word in dictionaries having only one vowel is STRENGTHS. The longest word with only one vowel (if repeats are allowed) is CHRONONHOTONTHOLOGOS (twenty letters). STRENGTHLESSNESSES contains only Es and is just two letters shorter.

The Five Vowels
The shortest word containing all five vowels exactly once is the six-letter EUNOIA, meaning alertness of mind an will (and also the title of a book by Canadian poet Christian Bok). However, it is not included in any major English dictionary. There are several seven-letter words containing all the vowels, including SEQUOIA, EULOGIA, MIAOUED, ADOULIE, EUCOSIA, EUNOMIA, EUTOPIA, MOINEAU, and DOULEIA. The relatively common French word OISEAU (meaning bird) contains all five vowels, once each.
The shortest word with the five vowels occurring in alphabetical order is AERIOUS (airy), which has seven letters. The longest such word is PHRAGELLIORHYNCHUS (a protozoan) with 18 letters. There are two seven-letter words in Portuguese that contain the five vowels in alphabetical order: ACEITOU and ALEIJOU.

SUOIDEA (the taxonomic group to which pigs belong) is the shortest word with the five vowels in reverse alphabetical order. The longest such word is PUNCTOSCHMIDTELLA (a crustacean).

ULTRAREVOLUTIONARIES has each vowel exactly twice. The shortest such word is CUBOIDEONAVICULARE, and the longest, USSOLZEWIECHINOGAMMARUS (a small crustacean).

Letter Frequencies

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Etaoin Shrdlu is a somewhat infamous phrase among language enthusiasts. It is pronounced "eh-tay-oh-in shird-loo" and is believed to be the twelve most common letters in English, in order of most frequently used to least frequently used. The expression came about from linotype typesetting machines. Were one to run a finger down the first and then second left-hand vertical banks of six keys on a linotype machine, it would produce the words "etaoin shrdlu." Linotype machines were sometimes tested in this manner. Once in a while, a careless linotype machine operator would fail to throw his test lines away, and that phrase would mysteriously show up in published material. The full sequence is "etaoin shrdlu cmfgyp wbvkxj qz."

When analyzing the frequency with which letters appear in English, it's important to understand whether you are factoring in the frequency with which individual words are used. For example, the letter 'h' is not found in a comparatively large number of English words, but as it appears in several of the most commonly used words, such as "the," "then," "there," and "that," it appears more often in every day speech and writing than it does in a list of dictionary words. The "etaoin shrdlu" sequence given above is based on the frequency of letters as they appear in speech and writing.

Letter Groupings

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Letters can be distinguished strictly by physical representation in a number of different ways. Sometimes groups of letters are given in the form of a puzzle, and you have to figure out the rule by which they are grouped. Below are several different letter groupings, which illustrate how many letters in the alphabet possess some particular characteristic. Some of the groupings below assume a sans-serif font.

Letters Rule
AEFHIKLMNTVWXYZ Letters drawn with only straight lines
COS Letters drawn with only curved lines
BDGJPQRU Letters drawn with straight and curved lines.

BDO Letters with no endpoints.
P Letters with one endpoint.
ACGIJLMNQRSUVWZ Letters with two endpoints.
EFTY Letters with three endpoints.
HKX Letters with four endpoints.

CEFGIJKLMNSTUVWXYZ Letters with no enclosed areas.
ADOPQR Letters with one enclosed area.
B Letters with two enclosed areas.

BCDEHIKOX Letters with horizontal symmetry.
AFGJLMNPQRSTUVWYZ Letters without horizontal symmetry.

AHIMOTUVWXY Letters with vertical symmetry.
BCDEFGJKLNPQRSZ Letters without vertical symmetry.

HIOX Letters with horizontal and vertical symmetry.
ABCDEFGJKLMNPQRSTUVWYZ Letters without horizontal and vertical symmetry.

HINOSXZ Letters with 180 degree rotational symmetry.
ABCDEFGJKLMPQRTUVWY Letters without 180 degree rotational symmetry.

BCDGIJLMNOPRSUVWZ Letters that can be drawn without taking pen off paper.
AEFHKQTXY Letters that can't be drawn without taking pen off paper.

COPSUVWXZ Capital letters that look like the corresponding lower case letters.
ABDEFGHIJKLMNQRTY Capital letters that don't look like the corresponding lower case letters.

IJ Letters that are dotted in lower case.
ABCDEFGHKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Letters that aren't dotted in lower case.

BDFHKLT Letters that have ascenders in lower case.
ACEGIJMNOPQRSUVWXYZ Letters that have do not ascenders in lower case.

GJPQY Letters that have descenders in lower case.
ABCDEFHIKLMNORSTUVWXZ Letters that do not have descenders in lower case.

CDILMVX Letters that are Roman Numerals.
ABEFGHJKNOPQRSTUWYZ Letters that aren't Roman Numerals.

EHIS Letters that consist of just dots in Morse Code.
MOT Letters that consist of just dashes in Morse Code.
ABCDFGJKLNPQRUVWXYZ Letters that consist of both dots and dashes in Morse Code.

Collective Nouns

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One of the craziest oddities of the English language is that there are so many different collective nouns that all mean "group" but which are specific to what particular thing there is a group of: a herd of elephants, a crowd of people, a box of crayons, a pad of paper, etc. There is great diversity of collective nouns associated with animals, from a sleuth of bears to a murder of crows. The following is a list of the correct terms to describe groups of various types of animals.

herd of antelope
army of ants
colony of ants
swarm of ants
shrewdness of apes
flange of baboons
congress of baboons
tribe of baboons
culture of bacteria
cete of badgers
colony of badgers
sleuth of bears
sloth of bears
pack of bears (polar bears)
colony of beavers
lodge of beavers
flight of bees
grist of bees
hive of bees
swarm of bees
congregation of birds
dissimulation of birds
flight of birds
flock of birds
volery of birds
sedge of bitterns
siege of bitterns
herd of boar
singular of boar
sounder of boar
chain of bobolinks
brace of bucks
clash of bucks
herd of buffalo
rabble of butterflies
swarm of butterflies
wake of buzzards
flock of camels
army of caterpillars
clowder of cats
clutter of cats
glaring of cats
pounce of cats
dout of cats (house cats)
nuisance of cats (house cats)
kendle of cats (kittens)
kindle of cats (kittens)
litter of cats (kittens)
destruction of cats (wild cats)
drove of cattle
herd of cattle
kine of cattle
team of cattle
yoke of cattle (two)
herd of chamois
brood of chickens
flock of chickens
peep of chickens
brood of chicks
chattering of chicks
clutch of chicks
cartload of chimpanzees
herd of chinchillas
bed of clams
quiver of cobras
rag of colts
rake of colts
bury of conies
cover of coots
flight of cormorants
band of coyotes
sedge of cranes
siege of cranes
congregation of crocodiles
float of crocodiles
storytelling of crows
murder of crows
herd of deer
leash of deer
parcel of deer
bevy of deer (roe deer)
kennel of dogs
pack of dogs
litter of dogs (puppies)
pod of dolphins
drove of donkeys
herd of donkeys
pace of donkeys
trip of dotterel
bevy of doves
cote of doves
dole of doves
dule of doves
flight of doves
piteousness of doves
flight of dragons
weyr of dragons
wing of dragons
brace of ducks
flock of ducks
flush of ducks
paddling of ducks
raft of ducks
team of ducks
aerie of eagles
convocation of eagles
swarm of eels
herd of elephants
memory of elephants
parade of elephants
gang of elk
herd of elk
mob of emus
business of ferrets
cast of ferrets
fesnying of ferrets
charm of finches
catch of fish
haul of fish
run of fish
school of fish
shoal of fish
swarm of flies
lead of foxes
leash of foxes
skulk of foxes
army of frogs
colony of frogs
knot of frogs
flock of geese
gaggle of geese
skein of geese (in flight)
wedge of geese (flying in a 'V')
horde of gerbils
corps of giraffes
herd of giraffes
tower of giraffes
cloud of gnats
horde of gnats
swarm of gnats
herd of gnus
implausibility of gnus
drove of goats
herd of goats
tribe of goats
trip of goats
charm of goldfinches
glint of goldfish
band of gorillas
skein of goslings
leash of greyhounds
covey of grouse
pack of grouse
colony of gulls
group of guinea pigs
horde of hamsters
drove of hares
down of hares
husk of hares
leash of hares
trace of hares
trip of hares
warren of hares
aerie of hawks
cast of hawks
kettle of hawks
array of hedgehogs
prickle of hedgehogs
brood of hens
hedge of herons
sedge of herons
siege of herons
shoal of herrings
crash of hippopotami
herd of hippopotami
bloat of hippopotami
drift of hogs
parcel of hogs
passel of hogs
nest of hornets
harras of horses
herd of horses
stable of horses
team of horses
troop of horses
cry of hounds
mute of hounds
pack of hounds
charm of hummingbirds
clan of hyenas
band of jays
party of jays
scold of jays
smack of jellyfish
herd of kangaroos
mob of kangaroos
troop of kangaroos
deceit of lapwings
ascension of larks
exaltation of larks
leap of leopards
leep of leopards
lepe of leopards
pride of lions
sault of lions
sowse of lions
troop of lions
lounge of lizards
herd of llamas
plague of locusts
tidings of magpies
sord of mallards
stud of mares
richness of martens
horde of mice
mischief of mice
nest of mice
company of moles
labor of moles
movement of moles
cartload of monkeys
tribe of monkeys
troop of monkeys
troup of monkeys
herd of moose
barren of mules
pack of mules
rake of mules
span of mules
watch of nightingales
bevy of otter
family of otter
raft of otter
romp of otter
parliament of owls
drove of oxen
herd of oxen
span of oxen
team of oxen
yoke of oxen (two)
bed of oysters
company of parrots
covey of partridges
muster of peacocks
ostentation of peacocks
colony of penguins
crèche of penguins
huddle of penguins
parcel of penguins
rookery of penguins
nest of pheasants
nide of pheasants (on the ground)
nye of pheasants (on the ground)
bouquet of pheasants (when flushed)
flight of pigeons
flock of pigeons
drove of pigs
herd of pigs
litter of pigs
farrow of pigs (piglets)
sounder of pigs (wild pigs)
shoal of pilchards
congregation of plovers
wing of plovers
chine of polecats
string of ponies
pod of porpoises
school of porpoises
passel of possum
coterie of prairie dogs
bevy of quail
covey of quail
bury of rabbits
colony of rabbits
down of rabbits
drove of rabbits
husk of rabbits
leash of rabbits
trace of rabbits
trip of rabbits
warren of rabbits
nest of rabbits (young)
wrack of rabbits (young)
gaze of raccoons
nursery of raccoons
colony of rats
horde of rats
mischief of rats
pack of rats
plague of rats
swarm of rats
rhumba of rattlesnakes
storytelling of ravens
unkindness of ravens
crash of rhinoceri
building of rooks
clamor of rooks
storytelling of rooks
run of salmon
school of salmon
shoal of salmon
bob of seals
colony of seals
crash of seals
harem of seals
herd of seals
pod of seals
rookery of seals
spring of seals
team of seals
school of shark
shiver of shark
down of sheep
drove of sheep
flock of sheep
fold of sheep
hurtle of sheep
trip of sheep
bed of snakes
den of snakes
nest of snakes
pit of snakes
walk of snipes
wisp of snipes
host of sparrows
dray of squirrels
scurry of squirrels
murmuration of starlings
muster of storks
mustering of storks
flight of swallows
bevy of swans
herd of swans
wedge of swans (flying in a 'V')
flock of swifts
drift of swine
sounder of swine
spring of teals
ambush of tigers
streak of tigers
knot of toads
hover of trout
flock of turkeys
brood of turkeys (immature)
bale of turtles
generation of vipers
nest of vipers
colony of vultures
mob of wallabees
herd of walruses
pod of walruses
pack of weasels
sneak of weasels
gam of whales
herd of whales
pod of whales
school of whales
plump of wildfowl
herd of wolves
pack of wolves
rout of wolves
route of wolves
warren of wombats
fall of woodcocks
descent of woodpeckers
herd of yaks
herd of zebras
zeal of zebras

Spelling: Common Words that Sound Alike

Many words sound alike but mean different things when put into writing. This list will help you distinguish between some of the more common words that sound alike.

Forms to remember
Accept, Except
accept = verb meaning to receive or to agree: He accepted their praise graciously.
except = preposition meaning all but, other than: Everyone went to the game except Alyson.
For more information on these words, plus exercises, see our document on accept/except and affect/effect.

Affect, Effect
affect = verb meaning to influence: Will lack of sleep affect your game?

effect = noun meaning result or consequence: Will lack of sleep have an effect on your game?

effect = verb meaning to bring about, to accomplish: Our efforts have effected a major change in university policy.
A memory-help for affect and effect is is RAVEN: Remember, Affect is a Verb and Effect is a Noun.

For more information on these words, plus exercises, see our document on accept/except and affect/effect.

Advise, Advice
advise = verb that means to recommend, suggest, or counsel: I advise you to be cautious.

advice = noun that means an opinion or recommendation about what could or should be done: I'd like to ask for your advice on this matter.
Conscious, Conscience
conscious = adjective meaning awake, perceiving: Despite a head injury, the patient remained conscious.

conscience = noun meaning the sense of obligation to be good: Chris wouldn't cheat because his conscience wouldn't let him.
Idea, Ideal
idea = noun meaning a thought, belief, or conception held in the mind, or a general notion or conception formed by generalization: Jennifer had a brilliant idea -- she'd go to the Writing Lab for help with her papers!

ideal = noun meaning something or someone that embodies perfection, or an ultimate object or endeavor: Mickey was the ideal for tutors everywhere.
ideal = adjective meaning embodying an ultimate standard of excellence or perfection, or the best; Jennifer was an ideal student.
Its, It's
its = possessive adjective (possesive form of the pronoun it): The crab had an unusual growth on its shell.

it's = contraction for it is or it has (in a verb phrase): It's still raining; it's been raining for three days. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)
Lead, Led
lead = noun referring to a dense metallic element: The X-ray technician wore a vest lined with lead.

led = past-tense and past-participle form of the verb to lead, meaning to guide or direct: The evidence led the jury to reach a unanimous decision.
Than, Then
Than
used in comparison statements: He is richer than I.
used in statements of preference: I would rather dance than eat.
used to suggest quantities beyond a specified amount: Read more than the first paragraph.

Then
a time other than now: He was younger then. She will start her new job then.
next in time, space, or order: First we must study; then we can play.
suggesting a logical conclusion: If you've studied hard, then the exam should be no problem.

Their, There, They're
Their = possessive pronoun: They got their books.

There = that place: My house is over there. (This is a place word, and so it contains the word here.)

They're = contraction for they are: They're making dinner. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)
To, Too, Two
To = preposition, or first part of the infinitive form of a verb: They went to the lake to swim.

Too = very, also: I was too tired to continue. I was hungry, too.

Two = the number 2: Two students scored below passing on the exam.
Two, twelve, and between are all words related to the number 2, and all contain the letters tw.
Too can mean also or can be an intensifier, and you might say that it contains an extra o ("one too many")

We're, Where, Were
We're = contraction for we are: We're glad to help. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)

Where = location: Where are you going? (This is a place word, and so it contains the word here.)

Were = a past tense form of the verb be: They were walking side by side.
Your, You're
Your = possessive pronoun: Your shoes are untied.

You're = contraction for you are: You're walking around with your shoes untied. (Pronouns have apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)

One Word or Two?
All ready/already
all ready: used as an adjective to express complete preparedness

already: an adverb expressing time

At last I was all ready to go, but everyone had already left.

All right/alright
all right: used as an adjective or adverb; older and more formal spelling, more common in scientific & academic writing: Will you be all right on your own?

alright: Alternate spelling of all right; less frequent but used often in journalistic and business publications, and especially common in
fictional dialogue: He does alright in school.

All together/altogether

all together: an adverb meaning considered as a whole, summed up: All together, there were thirty-two students at the museum.

altogether: an intensifying adverb meaning wholly, completely, entirely: His comment raises an altogether different problem.
Anyone/any one
anyone: a pronoun meaning any person at all: Anyone who can solve this problem deserves an award.

any one: a paired adjective and noun meaning a specific item in a group; usually used with of: Any one of those papers could serve as an example.

Note: There are similar distinctions in meaning for everyone and every one

Anyway/any way
anyway: an adverb meaning in any case or nonetheless: He objected, but she went anyway.

any way: a paired adjective and noun meaning any particular course, direction, or manner: Any way we chose would lead to danger.

Awhile/a while

awhile: an adverb meaning for a short time; some readers consider it nonstandard; usually needs no preposition: Won't you stay awhile?

a while: a paired article and noun meaning a period of time; usually used with for: We talked for a while, and then we said good night.

Maybe/may be
maybe: an adverb meaning perhaps: Maybe we should wait until the rain stops.

may be: a form of the verb be: This may be our only chance to win the championship.

Spelling: IE/EI

Rule
Write I before E
Except after C
Or when it sounds like an A
As in "neighbor" and "weigh"

i before e: relief, believe, niece, chief, sieve, frieze, field, yield

e before i: receive, deceive, ceiling, conceit, vein, sleigh, freight, eight

Exceptions
seize, either, weird, height, foreign, leisure, conscience, counterfeit, forfeit, leisure, neither, science, species, sufficient

Plurals of nouns can be created in the following ways:
1. Add an -s to form the plural of most words.

elephant--elephants
stereo--stereos
2. For words that end in a "hissing" sound (-s, -z, -x, -ch, -sh), add an -es to form the plural.

box--boxes
church--churches
3. If the word ends in a vowel plus -y (-ay, -ey, -iy, -oy, -uy), add an -s to the word.

tray--trays
key--keys
4. If the word ends in a consonant plus -y, change the -y into -ie and add an -s to form the plural.

enemy--enemies
baby--babies
5. For words that end in -is, change the -is to -es to make the plural form.

synopsis--synopses
thesis--theses
6. Some words that end in -f or -fe have plurals that end in -ves.

knife--knives
self--selves
7. The plurals of words ending in -o are formed by either adding -s or by adding -es. The plurals of many words can be formed either way. To determine whether a particular word ends in -s or -es (or if the word can be spelled either way), check your dictionary or the list below. There are two helpful rules:

a. All words that end in a vowel plus -o (-ao, -eo, -io, -oo, -uo) have plurals that end in just -s:
stereo--stereos
studio--studios
duo--duos
b. All musical terms ending in -o have plurals ending in just -s.

piano--pianos
cello--cellos
solo--solos
c. Plural forms of words ending in -o:

-os
albinos
armadillos
autos
bravos
broncos
cantos
casinos
combos
gazebos
infernos
kimonos
logos
maraschinos
ponchos
sombreros
tacos
torsos
tobaccos
typos

-oes
echoes
embargoes
heroes
potatoes
tomatoes
torpedoes
vetoes

-os or -oes

avocados/oes
buffaloes/os
cargoes/os
desperadoes/os
dodoes/os
dominoes/os
ghettos/oes
grottoes/os
hoboes/os
innuendoes/os
lassos/oes
mangoes/os
mosquitoes/os
mottoes/os
mulattos/oes
noes/os
palmettos/oes
peccadilloes/os
tornadoes/os
volcanoes/os
zeros/oes

8. The plurals of single capital letters, acronyms, and Arabic numerals (1,2,3,...) take an -s WITHOUT an apostrophe:

Z (the capital letter Z)--Zs
UPC (Universal Product Code)--UPCs
ATM (Automatic Teller Machine)--ATMs
GUI (Graphical User Interface)--GUIs
3 (the Arabic numeral 3)--3s

Spelling: -ible vs. -able

Rule
-ible -able
If the root is not a complete word, add -ible.

aud + ible = audible
Examples:

visible
horrible
terrible
possible
edible
eligible
incredible
permissible

If the root is a complete word, add -able.

accept + able = acceptable

Examples:

fashionable
laughable
suitable
dependable
comfortable

If the root is a complete word ending in -e, drop the final -e and add -able.

excuse - e+ able = excusable

Examples:

advisable
desirable
valuable
debatable

Some exceptions:

contemptible
digestible
flexible
responsible
irritable
inevitable

Amazing Language Facts

2009-07-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

Amazing Language Facts
There are more than 2,700 languages in the world. In addition, there are more than 7,000 dialects. A dialect is a regional variety of a language that has a different pronunciation, vocabulary, or meaning.
The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is spoken in northwestern Spain and southwestern France. It is not related to any other language in the world. It has an extremely complicated word structure and vocabulary.
All pilots on international flights identify themselves in English.
Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.
The language in which a government conducts business is the official language of that country.
More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.
Many languages in Africa include a “click” sound that is pronounced at the same time as other sounds. You must learn these languages in childhood to do it properly.
Language Trivia
"Euouae," a medieval music term, is the longest word in English that contains only vowels. It’s also the word with the most consecutive vowels.

"Screeched," which means to make a harsh sound, is the longest one-syllable word in English.

"Unprosperousness", meaning not wealthy or profitable, is the longest word in English in which each letter is used at least two times.

The words "facetiously," "abstemiously," and "arseniously," each contain all six vowels (including “y”) in alphabetical order. The word "duoliteral" contains all five vowels (not including “y”) in reverse alphabetical order.

At 45 letters, "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis," which refers to a lung disease, is often considered the longest word in English.

"Feedback" is the shortest word in English that has the letters a, b, c, d, e, and f.

"Floccinaucinihilipilification," is the longest word in English that does not contain letter “e”

No words in English rhyme with: "month," "orange," "silver," or "purple."

“Q” is the only letter that does not occur in any of the U.S. state names.

"Maine" is the only U.S. state whose name is just one syllable.

"Bookkeeper" is the only English word that has three consecutive double letters.

The word “therein” contains only seven letters, but it contains 10 words that can be formed using consecutive letters: the, there, I, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, herein.

The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” is a pangram, which is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet.

"United Arab Emirates," a small country in the Middle East, is made up of alternating vowels and consonants. It is the longest name of a country whose letters do that.

Most Widely Spoken Languages
in the World
Language Approx. number
of speakers
1. Chinese (Mandarin) 1,075,000,000
2. English 514,000,000
3. Hindustani1 496,000,000
4. Spanish 425,000,000
5. Russian 275,000,000
6. Arabic 256,000,000
7. Bengali 215,000,000
8. Portuguese 194,000,000
9. Malay-Indonesian 176,000,000
10. French 129,000,000

Idioms and Proverbs
If you say, “The cat's out of the bag” instead of “The secret is given away,” you're using an idiom. The meaning of an idiom is different from the actual meaning of the words used. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is a proverb. Proverbs are old but familiar sayings that usually give advice. Both idioms and proverbs are part of our daily speech. Many are very old and have interesting histories. See how many of these sayings you know.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

This proverb comes from the ancient Romans, who believed the apple had magical powers to cure illness. In fact, apples are filled with vitamin C, protein, pectin, natural sugars, copper, and iron. They do promote health.

To “climb on the bandwagon.”

Long ago, bands on the platforms of traveling wagons played music to announce a parade or political speech. To show their support, people would often jump onto the platform and join the band. Today, this idiom usually refers to someone who hopes to benefit from supporting another person's idea.

“Saved by the bell.”

In 17th-century England, a guard at Windsor Castle was accused of falling asleep at his post. He claimed he was wrongly accused and could prove it; he had heard the church bell chime 13 times at midnight. Townspeople supported his claim and he was not executed. Today we think of the bell that ends a round in boxing, often saving the boxer from injury, or the bell at the end of a class period, saving you from more work. Regardless, this idiom means rescue from a situation at the last possible moment.

“Bury the hatchet.”

Native Americans used to bury weapons to show that fighting had ended and enemies were now at peace. Today, the idiom means to make up with a friend after an argument or fight.

To “have a chip on one's shoulder.”

In nineteenth-century America, a boy who thought he was pretty tough would put a wood chip on his shoulder and dare anyone to knock it off. Today the idiom refers to anyone who is “touchy” or takes offense easily.

Bakers once gave an extra roll for every dozen sold, so a baker's dozen is 13.

“A close shave.”

In the past, student barbers learned to shave on customers. If they shaved too close, their clients might be cut or even barely escape serious injury. Today, we use this idiom if a person narrowly escapes disaster.

“Dot the i's and cross the t's.”

When only handwritten documents were used, it was very important for the clerk to write everything properly, especially letters like i and t, which could easily be confused. The idiom has since come to mean paying attention to every little detail.

“He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

In medieval times, people were entertained by strolling musicians. Whoever paid the price could choose the music. This proverb means that whoever pays is in charge.

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

In seventeenth-century England, a free press was banned by the government. This meant that people who disagreed with the government and printed their views were punished. In spite of this, people published their ideas and opinions in illegal pamphlets that were distributed to the public. The proverb means that the written expression of ideas cannot be stopped by physical force.

“The pot calling the kettle black.”

In the seventeenth century, both pots and kettles turned black because they were used over open fires. Today, this idiom means criticizing someone else for a fault of one's own.

“Raining cats and dogs.”

In Norse mythology, the dog is associated with wind and the cat with storms. This expression means it's raining very heavily.

To “shed crocodile tears.”

Crocodiles have a reflex that causes their eyes to tear when they open their mouths. This makes it look as though they are crying while devouring their prey. In fact, neither crocodiles nor people who shed “crocodile” tears feel sorry for their actions.

“Clean bill of health.”

When a doctor gives you a “clean bill of health,” you know that you’re perfectly healthy. In the past, when a ship left a port, it was given a Bill of Health if there were no epidemics in the area from which it left.

“Close but no cigar.”

Years ago, cigars were often given as prizes in contests at fairs and carnivals. When a player almost won, the person running the game would say, “Close but no cigar.”

“Cut from the same cloth.”

This means that a person is very similar to another. When making suits, tailors use fabric from the same piece of cloth to make sure the pieces match perfectly.

“Strike while the iron’s hot.”

When you do this, you’re taking advantage of a good opportunity. Blacksmiths must shape iron into objects during the brief time it’s red-hot.

Acronyms and Other “Onyms”
How many words can you think of that end in -onym? Antonym and synonym are two. Antonyms are words with opposite meanings. Synonyms are words that mean the same thing. The ending, or suffix, comes from the Greek word onyma, which means “name.” Words that end in -onym are names for a type of word.

Acronym
A word or name formed by combining the first letters or groups of letters from a phrase. For example, SCUBA comes from self-contained underwaterbreathing apparatus.

Aptronym
A name that's especially suited to the profession of its owner. For example, Sally Ride, the astronaut.

Capitonym
A word that takes on a new meaning when capitalized. For example, polish (pol-ish), Polish (Polish).

Charactonym
The name of a literary character that especially suits his or her personality. For example, Charles Dickens's Scrooge is a miser.

Eponym
A real or mythical person from whose name a place, a thing, or an event is taken. The earl of Sandwich, for example, the first person to ask for meat between two slices of bread, is the eponym of the modern sandwich.

Heteronym
Two or more words with identical spelling but different meaning and pronunciation. There are so many bows. How about bow and arrow? Bow of a boat?

Homonym
Words that sound alike (and are sometimes spelled alike) but name different things. For example, die (to stop living) and dye (color).

Pseudonym
From the Greek pseud (false) and onym (name), a false name or pen name, used by an author. Mark Twain is a pseudonym for Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

Toponym
A place name or word that began as the name of a place, such as hamburger (from Hamburg, Germany) and afghan (a soft blanket from Afghanistan).

A palindrome is a word, phrase, or sentence that reads the same forward and backward. Here are some examples of palindromes.

A Santa at NASA.
Civic
Dad
Dee saw a seed.
Hannah
Kayak
Madam
Never odd or even
Nurses run.
radar
Rise to vote, sir.
Was it a cat I saw?

Anagrams
An anagram is a word, phrase or sentence formed by rearranging another word or group of words. Here are a few examples.

admirer married
angel glean
dance caned
funeral real fun
listen silent
seminola is no meal
senator treason
teachers cheaters
the eyes they see
the Morse Code here come dots

Greetings Around the World
Some people shake hands, some kiss and hug. Others just say hello. These exchanges are common in the U.S., but how do people in other countries greet each other? In most of Europe, a handshake will do.

A Few of the Ways to Say Hello in Asia
Country Gesture
China a nod or bow
Hong Kong (older Chinese) clasp hands together at throat level and nod
India palms together as though praying and bend or nod, called namaste
Indonesia say selamat, which means peace
Japan bow from the waist, palms on thighs, heels together
Korea a slight bow and handshake (right hand in one or both hands)
Malaysia both hands touch other person's hands, then are brought back to the breast, called salame gesture
Philippines a limp handshake
Sri Lanka place palms together under chin and bow slightly
Thailand place palms together, elbows down, and bow head slightly, called wai

In Malaysia people greet each other by saying “Where are you going?” Because it is not really a question, the polite response is “Just for a walk.”

Say Thank You
It's what your parents always remind you to say. Now you can dazzle your friends and relatives by saying it in 26 different languages.

Language Thank you Pronunciation
Afrikaans dankie dahn-kee
Arabic shukran shoe-krahn
Australian English ta (informal)
Chinese, Cantonese do jeh daw-dyeh
Chinese, Mandarin xie xie syeh-syeh
Czech dêkuji deh-ku-yih
Danish tak tahg
Finnish kiitos kee-toas
French merci mehr-see
German danke dahn-kah
Greek efharisto ef-har-rih-stowe
Hebrew toda toh-dah
Hindi, Hindustani sukria shoo-kree-a
Indonesian/Malayan terima kasih t'ree-ma kas-seh
Italian grazie gra-see
Japanese arigato ahree-gah-tow
Korean kamsa hamnida kahm-sah=ham-nee-da
Norwegian takk tahk
Philippines (Tagalog) salamat po sah-lah-maht poh
Polish dziekuje dsyen-koo-yeh
Portuguese obrigado oh-bree-gah-doh
Russian spasibo spah-see-boh
Spanish gracias gra-see-us
Sri Lanka (Sinhak) istutiy isst-too-tee
Swahili asante ah-sahn-teh
Swedish tack tahkk
Thai kawp-kun krap/ka' kowpkoom-krahp/khak
Turkish tesekkür ederim teh-sheh-kur=eh-deh-rim

Saying “Merry Christmas” or “Season's Greetings”Around the World
Ways to say "Merry Christmas" or "Season's Greetings" in such languages as Afrikaans, Danish, Hindi, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Swahili, Thai, and more.

Language Merry Christmas
Afrikaans Gesëende Kersfees
Czech Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Danish Glædelig Jul
Esperanto Gajan Kristnaskon
Finnish Hyvää Joulua
French Joyeux Noël
German Froehliche Weihnachten
Greek Kala Christouyenna
Hawaiian Mele Kalikimaka
Hindi Bada Din Mubarak Ho
Icelandic Gledileg Jol
Irish Nollaig Shona Dhuit
Italian Buon Natale or Buone Feste Natalizie
Japanese Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Korean Sung Tan Chuk Ha
Latin Natale hilare
Lithuanian Linksmu Kaledu
Maori Meri Kirihimete
Norwegian God Jul
Polish Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia
Portuguese Feliz Natal
Russian Srozhdestovm Kristovim
Spanish Feliz Navidad
Swahili Kuwa na Krismasi njema
Tagalog Maligayang Pasko
Thai Suksun Wan Christmas
Vietnamese Chuc Mung Giang Sinh
Welsh Nadolig Llawen

Saying “Happy New Year!” Around the World
Ways to say "Happy New Year" in such languages as Arabic, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), French, Hebrew, Korean, Swedish, Vietnamese, and more.

Language Happy New Year!
Afrikaans Voorspoedige nuwe jaar
Arabic Kul 'am wa antum bikhair
Basque Urte Berri on
Bengali Shuvo noboborsho
Chinese (Cantonese) Sun nien fai lok
Chinese (Mandarin) Xin nian yu kuai
Czech Stastny Novy Rok
Danish Godt NytÅr
Dutch Gelukkig nieuwjaar
Esperanto Bonan Novjaron
Finnish Onnellista uutta vuotta
French Bonne année
German Ein glückliches neues Jahr
Greek Eutychismenos o kainourgios chronos
Hawaiian Hauoli Makahiki hou
Hebrew Shana Tova
Hungarian Boldog uj evet
Indonesian (Bahasa) Selamat Tahun Baru
Italian Felice Anno Nuovo or Buon anno
Japanese Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu
Korean Sehe Bokmanee Bateuseyo
Laotian (Hmong) Nyob Zoo Xyoo Tshiab
Latin Felix sit annus novus
Nigerian (Hausa) Barka da sabuwar shekara
Norwegian Godt Nytt År
Philippines (Tagalog) Manigong Bagong Taon
Polish Szczesliwego Nowego Roku
Romanian La Multi Ani si Un An Nou Fericit
Samoan Ia manuia le Tausaga Fou
Spanish Feliz año nuevo
Swahili Heri za Mwaka Mpya
Swedish Gott Nytt År
Thai Sawatdee Pi Mai
Vietnamese Chuc mung nam moi
Welsh Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

2012 is a leap year, which means that it has 366 days instead of the usual 365 days that an ordinary year has. An extra day is added in a leap year—February 29 —which is called an intercalary day or a leap day.

Why is a Leap Year Necessary?
Leap years are added to the calendar to keep it working properly. The 365 days of the annual calendar are meant to match up with the solar year. A solar year is the time it takes the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun — about one year. But the actual time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun is in fact a little longer than that—about 365 ¼ days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be precise). So the calendar and the solar year don't completely match—the calendar year is a touch shorter than the solar year.

It may not seem like much of a difference, but after a few years those extra quarter days in the solar year begin to add up. After four years, for example, the four extra quarter days would make the calendar fall behind the solar year by about a day. Over the course of a century, the difference between the solar year and the calendar year would become 25 days! Instead of summer beginning in June, for example, it wouldn't start until nearly a month later, in July. As every kid looking forward to summer vacation knows—calendar or no calendar—that's way too late! So every four years a leap day is added to the calendar to allow it to catch up to the solar year.

A Quick History Lesson
The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap day once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year. Later, the Romans adopted this solution for their calendar, and they became the first to designate February 29 as the leap day.

But Wait! It's Not Quite that Simple!
The math seems to work out beautifully when you add an extra day to the calendar every four years to compensate for the extra quarter of a day in the solar year. As we said earlier, however, the solar year is just about 365 ¼ days long, but not exactly! The exact length of a solar year is actually 11 minutes and 14 seconds less than 365 ¼ days. That means that even if you add a leap day every four years, the calendar would still overshoot the solar year by a little bit—11 minutes and 14 seconds per year. These minutes and seconds really start to add up: after 128 years, the calendar would gain an entire extra day. So, the leap year rule, "add a leap year every four years" was a good rule, but not good enough!

Calendar Correction, Part II
To rectify the situation, the creators of our calendar (the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582) decided to omit leap years three times every four hundred years. This would shorten the calendar every so often and rid it of the annual excess of 11 minutes and 14 seconds. So in addition to the rule that a leap year occurs every four years, a new rule was added: a century year is not a leap year unless it is evenly divisible by 400. This rule manages to eliminate three leap years every few hundred years.

It's Smooth Sailing for the Next 3,300 Years
This ingenious correction worked beautifully in bringing the calendar and the solar year in harmony, pretty much eliminating those pesky extra 11 minutes and 14 seconds. Now the calendar year and the solar year are just about a half a minute off. At that rate, it takes 3,300 years for the calendar year and solar year to diverge by a day.

Rules for Determining a Leap Year
Most years that can be divided evenly by 4 are leap years.
(For example, 2012 divided by 4 = 503: Leap year!)

Exception: Century years are NOT leap years UNLESS they can be evenly divided by 400. (For example, 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but 1600 and 2000, which are divisible by 400, were.)

The International Language of Love
How to Say “I Love You” Around the World
Language I Love You
Danish Jeg elsker dig
Dutch Ik hou van jou
Esperanto Mi amas vin
French Je t'aime
German Ich liebe Dich
Indonesian Saya cinta kamu
Italian Ti amo
Japanese Aishite imasu
Latin Te amo
Mandarin Chinese Wo ai ni
Polish Kocham cie
Romanian Te iu besc
Russian Ya vas liubliu
Spanish Te amo
Swedish Jag alskar dig
Turkish Seni seviyorum

Latin Words and Phrases
What's the language of scholars, doctors, lawyers, scientists, and priests? It's Latin, and it's not a dead language, as you can see. Here are some fun phrases and words in Latin.

English Latin Pronunciation
seize the day carpe diem car-pay dee-um
endlessly ad nauseam ad nawh-zee-um
unique sui generis soo-eye jen-ur-is
and so forth et cetera et set-ur-uh
silly me me ineptum may in-ep-toom
keepsake memento muh-men-toh
in reality de facto dih fak-toh
a common language lingua franca ling-gwuh frang-kuh
really vero we rr oh
with distinction cum laude koom lou-da
no way nullo modo noh-loh moh-doh
what's happening? quid fit? kwid feet
bubble gum manducabulla mahn-doo-kah-boo-lah
in or of itself per se pur say
really rad dude radicus comes rah di coos koh mees
read my lips labra lege lah-brah lay-gay
I'm out of here abeo ah bay-oh

Foreign Words and Phrases1
The English meanings given below are not necessarily literal translations.

ad absurdum
(ad ab-sir'dum) [Lat.]: to the point of absurdity. “He tediously repeated his argument ad absurdum.”
ad infinitum
(ad in-fun-eye'tum) [Lat.]: to infinity. “The lecture seemed to drone on ad infinitum.”
ad nauseam
(ad noz'ee-um) [Lat.]: to a sickening degree. “The politician uttered one platitude after another ad nauseam.”
aficionado
(uh-fish'ya-nah'doh) [Span.]: an ardent devotee. “I was surprised at what a baseball aficionado she had become.”
angst
(angkst) [Ger.]: dread and anxiety. “Sylvia's teenage angst was nothing compared to the parental angst experienced by the two individuals whose duty it was to raise her.”
annus mirabilis
(an'us muh-ra'buh-lis) [Lat.]: wonderful year. “Last year was the annus mirabilis for my company.”
a priori
(ah pree-or'ee) [Lat.]: based on theory rather than observation. “The fact that their house is in such disrepair suggests a priori that they are having financial difficulties.”
au courant
(oh' koo-rahn') [Fr.]: up-to-date. “The shoes, the hair, the clothes—every last detail of her dress, in fact—was utterly au courant.”
beau geste
(boh zhest') [Fr.]: a fine or noble gesture, often futile. “My fellow writers supported me by writing letters of protest to the publisher, but their beau geste could not prevent the inevitable.”
beau monde
(boh' mond') [Fr.]: high society. “Such elegant decor would impress even the beau monde.”
bête noire
(bet nwahr') [Fr.]: something or someone particularly disliked. “Talk of the good old college days way back when had become his bête noire, and he began to avoid his school friends.”
bona fide
(boh'na fide) [Lat.]: in good faith; genuine. “For all her reticence and modesty, it was clear that she was a bona fide expert in her field.”
bon mot
(bon moe') [Fr.]: a witty remark or comment. “One bon mot after another flew out of his mouth, charming the audience.”
bon vivant
(bon vee-vahnt') [Fr.]: a person who lives luxuriously and enjoys good food and drink. “It's true he's quite the bon vivant, but when he gets down to business he conducts himself like a Spartan.”
carpe diem
(kar'pay dee'um) [Lat.]: seize the day. “So what if you have an 8:00 a.m. meeting tomorrow and various appointments? Carpe diem!”
carte blanche
(kart blonsh') [Fr.]: unrestricted power to act on one's own. “I may have carte blanche around the office, but at home I'm a slave to my family's demands.”
casus belli
(kay'sus bel'eye) [Lat.]: an act justifying war. “The general felt that the banana republic's insolent remarks about our national honor were enough of a casus belli to launch an attack.”
cause célèbre
(koz suh-leb'ruh) [Fr.]: a widely known controversial case or issue. “The Sacco and Vanzetti trial became an international cause célèbre during the 1920s.”
caveat emptor
(kav'ee-ot emp'tor) [Lat.]: let the buyer beware. “Before you leap at that real estate deal, caveat emptor!”
comme ci comme ça
(kom see' kom sah') [Fr.]: so-so. “The plans for the party strike me as comme ci comme ça.”
comme il faut
(kom eel foe') [Fr.]: as it should be; fitting. “His end was truly comme il faut.”
coup de grâce
(koo de grahss') [Fr.]: finishing blow. “After an already wildly successful day, the coup de grâce came when she won best all-around athlete.”
cri de coeur
(kree' de kur') [Fr.]: heartfelt appeal. “About to leave the podium, he made a final cri de coeur to his people to end the bloodshed.”
de rigueur
(duh ree-gur') [Fr.]: strictly required, as by etiquette, usage, or fashion. “Loudly proclaiming one's support for radical causes had become de rigueur among her crowd.”
deus ex machina
(day'us ex mahk'uh-nuh) [Lat.]: a contrived device to resolve a situation. “Stretching plausibility, the movie concluded with a deus ex machina ending in which everyone was rescued at the last minute.”
dolce vita
(dole'chay vee'tuh) [Ital.]: sweet life; the good life perceived as one of physical pleasure and self-indulgence. “My vacation this year is going to be two uninterrupted weeks of dolce vita.”
doppelgänger
(dop'pul-gang-ur) [Ger.]: a ghostly double or counterpart of a living person. “I could not shake the sense that some shadowy doppelgänger echoed my every move.”
ecce homo
(ek'ay ho'mo) [Lat.]: behold the man. “The painting depicted the common Renaissance theme, ecce homo—Christ wearing the crown of thorns.”
enfant terrible
(ahn-fahn' tay-reeb'luh) [Fr.]: an incorrigible child; an outrageously outspoken or bold person. “He played the role of enfant terrible, jolting us with his blunt assessment.”
entre nous
(ahn'truh noo') [Fr.]: between ourselves; confidentially. “Entre nous, their marriage is on the rocks.”
ex cathedra
(ex kuh-thee'druh) [Lat.]: with authority; used especially of those pronouncements of the pope that are considered infallible. “I resigned myself to obeying; my father's opinions were ex cathedra in our household.”
ex post facto
(ex' post fak'toh) [Lat.]: retroactively. “I certainly hope that the change in policy will be honored ex post facto.”
fait accompli
(fate ah-kom-plee') [Fr.]: an accomplished fact, presumably irreversible. “There's no use protesting—it's a fait accompli.”
faux pas
(foh pah') [Fr.]: a social blunder. “Suddenly, she realized she had unwittingly committed yet another faux pas.”
Feinschmecker2
(fine'shmek-er) [Ger.]: gourmet. “No, I don't think McDonald's will do; he's much too much of a Feinschmecker.”
flagrante delicto
(fla-grahn'tee di-lik'toh) [Lat.]: in the act. “The detective realized that without hard evidence he had no case; he would have to catch the culprit flagrante delicto.”
glasnost
(glaz'nohst) [Rus.]: open and frank discussion: initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 in the Soviet Union. “Once the old chairman retired, the spirit of glasnost pervaded the department.”
hoi polloi
(hoy' puh-loy') [Gk.]: the common people. “Marie Antoinette recommended cake to the hoi polloi.”
in loco parentis
(in loh'koh pa-ren'tiss) [Lat.]: in the place of a parent. “The court appointed a guardian for the children, to serve in loco parentis.”
in medias res
(in me'-dee-as rays) [Lat.]: in the middle of a sequence of occurences. “The film begins in medias res, with a panting, terrified man running through the night.”
in situ
(in sit'too) [Lat.]: situated in the original or natural position. “I prefer seeing statues in situ rather than in the confines of a museum.”
in vino veritas
(in vee'no vare'i-toss) [Lat.]: in wine there is truth. “By the end of the party, several of the guests had made a good deal of their private lives public, prompting the host to murmur to his wife, ‘in vino veritas.’”
ipso facto
(ip'soh fak'toh) [Lat.]: by the fact itself. “An extremist, ipso facto, cannot become part of a coalition.”
je ne sais quoi
(zheh neh say kwah') [Fr.]: I know not what; an elusive quality. “She couldn't explain it, but there was something je ne sais quoi about him that she found devastatingly attractive.”
mano a mano
(mah'no ah mah'no) [Span.]: directly or face-to-face in a confrontation or conflict. “‘Stay out of it,’ he admonished his friends, ‘I want to handle this guy mano a mano.’”
mea culpa
(may'uh kul'puh) [Lat.]: I am to blame. “His mea culpa was so offhand that I hardly think he meant it.”
memento mori
(muh-men'toh more'ee) [Lat.]: a reminder that you must die. “The skull rested on the mantlepiece as a memento mori.”
mise en scene
(mee' zahn sen) [Fr.]: the stage setting; surroundings. “The mise en scene for the sci-fi movie was molded, futuristic furniture and blinding klieg lights.”
mot juste
(moh zhoost') [Fr.]: the exact, appropriate word. “‘Rats!’ screamed the defiant three-year-old, immensely proud of his mot juste.”
ne plus ultra
(nee' plus ul'truh) [Lat.]: the most intense degree of a quality or state. “Pulling it from the box, he realized he was face to face with the ne plus ultra of computers.”
nom de guerre
(nom duh gair') [Fr.]: pseudonym. “He went by his nom de guerre when frequenting trendy nightclubs.”
nom de plume
(nom duh ploom') [Fr.]: pen name. “Deciding it was time to sit down and begin a novel, the would-be writer spent the first several hours deciding upon a suitable nom de plume.”
nota bene
(noh'tuh ben'nee) [Ital.]: note well; take notice. “Her postcard included a reminder: nota bene, I'll be returning on the 11 o'clock train.”
persona non grata
(per-soh'nuh non grah'tuh) [Lat.]: unacceptable or unwelcome person. “Once I was cut out of the will, I became persona non grata among my relatives.”
prima facie
(pry'ma fay'she) [Lat.]: at first sight, clear and evident. “Although her husband implored, ‘I can explain!’ the sight of another woman wrapped in his arms was prima facie evidence that he was a deceitful lout.”
pro bono
(pro boh'noh) [Lat.]: done or donated without charge; free. “The lawyer's pro bono work gave him a sense of value that his work on behalf of the corporation could not.”
quid pro quo
(kwid' pro kwoh') [Lat.]: something for something; an equal exchange. “She vowed that when she had the means, she would return his favors quid pro quo.”
sans souci
(sahn soo-see') [Fr.]: carefree. “After serveral glasses of champagne, their mood turned distinctly sans souci.”
savoir-faire
(sav'wahr fair') [Fr.]: the ability to say and do the correct thing. “She presided over the gathering with impressive savoir-faire.”
schadenfreude
(shah den froy'deh) [Ger.]: pleasure at someone else's misfortunes. “Schadenfreude suffused the classroom after the insufferably supercilious class pet was caught cheating by the teacher.”
sic transit gloria mundi
(sick tran'sit glor'ee-uh mun'dee) [Lat.]: thus passes away the glory of the world. “Watching the aging former football quarterback lumber down the street, potbellied and dissipated, his friend shook his head in disbelief and muttered, ‘sic transit gloria mundi.’”
sine qua non
(sin'ay kwah nohn') [Lat.]: indispensable element or condition. “Lemon is the sine qua non of this recipe.”
sotto voce
(suh'tow voh'chee) [Ital.]: in a quiet voice, attempting not to be overheard. “While the others were distracted, he filled me in sotto voce on all the delicously sordid details of the scandal.”
sui generis
(su'ee jen'e-ris) [Lat.]: unique. “Adjusting her pirate's hat and fringed hula skirt, Zelda sashayed into the party, knowing her fashion statement was sui generis.”
terra incognita
(tare'uh in-kog-nee'tuh) [Lat.]: unknown territory. “When the conversation suddenly switched from contemporary fiction to medieval Albanian playwrights, he felt himself entering terra incognita.”
tout le monde
(too luh mond') [Fr.]: everybody; everyone of importance. “Don't miss the event; it's bound to be attended by tout le monde.”
veni, vidi, vici
(ven'ee vee'dee vee'chee) [Lat.]: I came, I saw, I conquered. “After the takeover the business mogul gloated, ‘veni, vidi, vici.’”
verboten
(fer-boh'ten) [Ger.]: forbidden, as by law; prohibited. “That topic, I am afraid, is verboten in this household.”
vox populi
(voks pop'yoo-lie) [Lat.]: the voice of the people. “My sentiments echo those of the vox populi.”
Wanderjahr2
(vahn'der-yahr) [Ger.]: a year or period of travel, especially following one's schooling. “The trio took off on their Wanderjahr, intent on visiting every museum between Edinburgh and Rome.”
Weltanschauung2
(velt'an-shou'ung) [Ger.]: a world view or philosophy of life. “His Weltanschauung gradually metamorphized from a grim and pessimistic one to a sunny, but no less complex, view.”
Weltschmerz2
(velt'shmerts) [Ger.]: sorrow over the evils of the world. “His poetry expressed a certain Weltschmerz, or world-weariness.”
Zeitgeist2
(zite'guyst) [Ger.]: the thought or sensibility characteristic of a particular period of time. “She blamed it on the Zeitgeist, which encouraged hedonistic excess.”

1. Foreign words and phrases should be set in italics (or underlined if written in longhand) if their meanings are likely to be unknown to the reader. Whether the expression is familiar or unfamiliar, however, is a matter of judgment. In this list, all foreign words have been italicized for the sake of emphasis.
2. German nouns are capitalized. A familiar German expression that is not italicized, however, should be lowercased, following the English conventions of not capitalizing common nouns. “His proclivities leaned more to the occult than to the philosophical: a poltergeist he could understand; the Zeitgeist he could not.”

Secret Languages/Mystery Messages
Moparopyop hopadop a lopitoptoplope lopamopbop. That means “Mary had a little lamb” in the secret language of Opish. Have you ever thought of using a language all your own? How about Double-Dutch, Na, or Skimono Jive? If you speak a secret language, no one will understand a word you say (until you tell them how it's done). Sound like fun? Try it! We've used “Mary had a little lamb” for each example.

Double-Dutch
b - bub k - kuk s - sus
c - cash l - lul t - tut
d - dud m - mum v - vuv
f - fuf n - nun w - wash
g - gug p - pub x - xux
h - hutch q - quack y - yub
j - jug r - rug z - zub

Vowels are pronounced normally, but consonants become syllables.

Example: Mumarugyub hutchadud a lulituttutlulelulamumbub.

Eggy-Peggy
This secret language is used mostly in England. Add “egg” before each vowel.

Example: Meggary heggad egga leggittle leggamb.

Gree
Add “gree” to the end of every word.

Example: Marygree hadgree agree littlegree lambgree.

Na
Add “na” to the end of every word.

Example: Maryna hadna ana littlena lambna.

Pig Latin
This is the most popular and well-known secret language. Move the first letter to the end of the word and add “ay” to it.

Example: Arymay adhay aay ittlelay amblay.

Skimono Jive
Add “sk” to the beginning of every word.

Example: Skmary skhad ska sklittle sklamb.

Making Wishes
The ancient Greeks threw coins in their wells, hoping to keep the wells from running dry. Today, people throw coins in fountains to make wishes come true. But don't throw all your coins into one fountain; there is more than one way to make a wish.

“Touch blue and your wish will come true.”
Make a wish each time you eat a green M&M.
Make a wish when you see three birds on a telephone wire.
Put a watermelon seed on your forehead and make a wish before it falls off.
Make a wish before you blow out the candles on your birthday cake.
Make a wish on the first star you see at night.
Throw a coin in a fountain; make a wish when the water clears so you can see your reflection.
Make a wish on a new pair of shoes before you wear them for the first time.
Make a wish with another person on a wishbone. Each takes an end and pulls until it breaks. The person with the largest piece of bone gets the “lucky break” and the wish.
Make a wish on the first robin you see in the spring.
Find a penny, wear it in your left shoe, and your wish will come true.
Wishes made on Midsummer's Eve (June 23) are most likely to come true.
Hold your breath and make a wish while crossing a short straight bridge.

What Colors Mean
We live in a colorful world. In many countries, colors represent various holidays; they are also used to express feelings and enliven language. Find your favorite color and see what it means around the world.

Red

For the ancient Romans, a red flag was a signal for battle.

Because of its visibility, stop signs, stoplights, brake lights, and fire equipment are all painted red.

The ancient Egyptians considered themselves a red race and painted their bodies with red dye for emphasis.

In Russia, red means beautiful. The Bolsheviks used a red flag as their symbol when they overthrew the tsar in 1917. That is how red became the color of communism.

In India, red is the symbol for a soldier.

In South Africa, red is the color of mourning.

It's considered good luck to tie a red bow on a new car.

In China, red is the color of good luck and is used as a holiday and wedding color. Chinese babies are given their names at a red-egg ceremony.

Superstitious people think red frightens the devil.

A “red-letter day” is one of special importance and good fortune.

In Greece, eggs are dyed red for good luck at Easter time.

To “paint the town red” is to celebrate.

Red is the color most commonly found in national flags.

In the English War of the Roses, red was the color of the House of Lancaster, which defeated the House of York, symbolized by the color white.

The “Redshirts” were the soldiers of the Italian leader Garibaldi, who unified modern Italy in the nineteenth century.

To “see red” is to be angry.

A “red herring” is a distraction, something that takes attention away from the real issue.

A “red eye” is an overnight airplane flight.

If a business is “in the red,” it is losing money.

Green

Only one national flag is a solid color: the green flag of Libya.

Ancient Egyptians colored the floors of their temples green.

In ancient Greece, green symbolized victory.

In the highlands of Scotland, people wore green as a mark of honor.

Green is the national color of Ireland.

A “greenback” is slang for a U.S. dollar bill.

Green means “go.” When “all systems are green,” it means everything is in order.

The green room of a concert hall or theater is where performers relax before going onstage.

The “green-eyed monster” is jealousy.

A greenhorn is a newcomer or unsophisticated person.

Green is youthful.

Being “green around the gills” is looking pale and sickly.

“Green with envy” means full of envy or jealousy.

A person with a “green thumb” is good at making plants grow.

A green, or common, is a town park.

Green is a healing color, the color of nature.

Blue

In ancient Rome, public servants wore blue. Today, police and other public servants wear blue.

In Iran, blue is the color of mourning.

Blue was used as protection against witches, who supposedly dislike the color.

If you are “true blue,” you are loyal and faithful.

Blue stands for love, which is why a bride carries or wears something blue on her wedding day.

A room painted blue is said to be relaxing.

“Feeling blue” is feeling sad. “Blue devils” are feelings of depression.

Something “out of the blue” is from an unknown source at an unexpected time.

A bluebook is a list of socially prominent people.

The first prize gets a blue ribbon.

A blue blood is a person of noble descent. This is probably from the blue veins of the fair-complexioned aristocrats who first used this term.

“Into the blue” means into the unknown.

A “bluenose” is a strict, puritanical person.

A “bluestocking” used to be a scholarly or highly knowledgeable woman.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore blue for protection against evil.

The “blues” is a style of music derived from southern African-American secular songs. It influenced the development of rock, R&B, and country music.

“Blue laws” are used to enforce moral standards.

A blue ribbon panel is a group of especially qualified people.

Purple, Violet

The Egyptian queen Cleopatra loved purple. To obtain one ounce of Tyrian purple dye, she had her servants soak 20,000 Purpura snails for 10 days.

In Thailand, purple is worn by a widow mourning her husband's death.

A “purple heart” is a U.S. military decoration for soldiers wounded or killed in battle.

Purple is a royal color.

Purple robes are an emblem of authority and rank.

“Purple speech” is profane talk.

“Purple prose” is writing that is full of exaggerated literary effects and ornamentation.

Leonardo da Vinci believed that the power of meditation increases 10 times when done in a purple light, as in the purple light of stained glass.

Purple in a child's room is said to help develop the imagination according to color theory.

Richard Wagner composed his operas in a room with shades of violet, his color of inspiration.

Yellow

In Egypt and Burma, yellow signifies mourning.

In Spain, executioners once wore yellow.

In India, yellow is the symbol for a merchant or farmer.

In tenth-century France, the doors of traitors and criminals were painted yellow.

Hindus in India wear yellow to celebrate the festival of spring.

If someone is said to have a “yellow streak,” that person is considered a coward.

In Japan during the War of Dynasty in 1357, each warrior wore a yellow chrysanthemum as a pledge of courage.

A yellow ribbon is a sign of support for soldiers at the front.

Yellow is a symbol of jealousy and deceit.

In the Middle Ages, actors portraying the dead in a play wore yellow.

To holistic healers, yellow is the color of peace.

Yellow has good visibility and is often used as a color of warning. It is also a symbol for quarantine, an area marked off because of danger.

“Yellow journalism” refers to irresponsible and alarmist reporting.

White

A white flag is the universal symbol for truce.

White means mourning in China and Japan.

Angels are usually depicted wearing white robes.

The ancient Greeks wore white to bed to ensure pleasant dreams.

The Egyptian pharaohs wore white crowns.

The ancient Persians believed all gods wore white.

A “white elephant” is a rare, pale elephant considered sacred to the people of India, Thailand, Burma, and Sri Lanka; in this country, it is either a possession that costs more than it is worth to keep or an item that the owner doesn't want but can't get rid of.

It's considered good luck to be married in a white garment.

White heat is a state of intense enthusiasm, anger, devotion, or passion.

To whitewash is to gloss over defects or make something seem presentable that isn't.

A “white knight” is a rescuer.

A white list contains favored items (as opposed to a blacklist).

A “whiteout” occurs when there is zero visibility during a blizzard.

A “white sale” is a sale of sheets, towels, and other bed and bath items.

A “whited sepulcher” is a person who is evil inside but appears good on the outside, a hypocrite.

“White lightning” is slang for moonshine, a homebrewed alcohol.

A white room is a clean room as well as a temperature-controlled, dust-free room for precision instruments.

White water is the foamy, frothy water in rapids and waterfalls.

Black

The ancient Egyptians and Romans used black for mourning, as do most Europeans and Americans today.

The “Blackshirts” were the security troops in Hitler's German army, also known as the S.S.

Black often stands for secrecy.

Black humor is morbid or unhealthy and gloomy humor.

A “blackhearted” person is evil.

If a business is “in the black,” it is making money.

A “blacklist” is a list of persons or organizations to be boycotted or punished.

Black is associated with sophistication and elegance. A “black tie” event is formal.

A black belt in karate identifies an expert.

A black flag in a car race is the signal for a driver to go to the pits.

A blackguard is a scoundrel.

The ancient Egyptians believed that black cats had divine powers.

Black lung is a coal miner's disease caused by the frequent inhaling of coal dust.

Blackmail is getting things by threat.

Black market is illegal trade in goods or money.

A black sheep is an outcast.

“Blackwash” (as opposed to “whitewash”) is to uncover or bring out in the light.

A blackout is a period of darkness from the loss of electricity, for protection against nighttime air raids, or, in the theater, to separate scenes in a play.

When you “black out,” you temporarily lose consciousness.

Say It with Flowers
If you send someone a single rose you are sending a message of love. You can send all kinds of messages with flowers. Florigraphy is the language of flowers. Hundreds of flowers and trees have been given meanings and here are some of them.

Flower/Tree Meaning
American Elm Patriotism
American Linden Matrimony
Anemone Expectation
Apple Temptation
Arborvitae Unchanging friendship
Ash Tree Grandeur
Aspen Tree Lamentation
Azalea Temperance
Beech Tree Prosperity
Birch Tree Meekness
Bluebell Constancy
Buttercup Ingratitude
Chamomille Energy in adversity
Candytuft Indifference
Carnation (Red) Alas! My poor heart!
Cedar Strength
Cherry Tree Good education
Chrysanthemum Slighted love
Clematis Mental beauty
Coreopsis Always cheerful
Cyclamen Shyness
Cypress Mourning
Dandelion Wisdom
Daffodil Regard
Daisy We feel the same
Dogwood Durability
Elm Dignity
Fig Tree Prolific
Forget-me-not True love
Fuchsia Taste
Geranium Comfort
Hollyhock Ambition
Honeysuckle Generosity
Horse Chestnut Luxury
Hydrangea Heartlessness
Iris Power
Ivy Fidelity
Juniper Protection
Lilac First Love
Lily of the Valley Return of joy
Locust Elegance
Lupine Imagination
Magnolia Love of nature
Morning Glory Affectation
Mulberry Wisdom
Nasturtium Patience
Oak Tree Hospitality
Orange Tree Generosity
Pear Tree Comfort
Plum Tree Fidelity
Poplar Courage
Rose Love
Sunflower Haughtiness
Sweet Pea Delicate pleasure
Sycamore Curiosity
Tulip Fame
Violet Faithfulness
Walnut Tree Intellect
Weeping Willow Mourning
Zinnia Absent friends
American Sign Language and Braille
Sign language for the deaf was first systematized in France during the 18th century by Abbot Charles-Michel l'Epée. French Sign Language (FSL) was brought to the United States in 1816 by Thomas Gallaudet, founder of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Conn. He developed American Sign Language (ASL), a language of gestures and hand symbols that express words and concepts.

In many respects, sign language is just like any spoken language, with a rich vocabulary and a highly organized, rule-governed grammar. But in sign language, information is processed through the eyes rather than the ears. Thus, facial expression and body movement play an important part in conveying information.

In spoken language, the relationship between most words and the objects and concepts they represent is arbitrary—there is nothing about the word “tree” that actually suggests a tree, either in the way it is spelled or pronounced. In the same way, in sign language most signs do not suggest, or imitate, the thing or idea they represent, and must be learned. Sign language may be acquired naturally as a child's first language, or it may be learned through study and practice.

Sign language shares other similarities with spoken languages. Like any living language, ASL grows and changes over time to accommodate native users' needs. ASL also has regional varieties, equivalent to spoken accents, with different signs being used in different parts of the country.

American Manual Alphabet
Along with sign language and lip reading, many deaf people also communicate with the manual alphabet, which uses finger positions that correspond to the letters of the alphabet to spell out words and names.

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Braille Alphabet
Braille is a system of printing and writing for the blind created in 1824 by Louis Braille (1809–1852), a French inventor who went blind from an accident when he was three. Each character in Braille is made up of an arrangement of one-to-six raised points used in 63 possible combinations. Braille is read by passing the fingers over the raised characters. A universal Braille code for English-speaking countries was adopted in 1932.

Common Abbreviations
A.B. Artium Baccalaureus [Bachelor of Arts]
abbr. abbreviation(s), abbreviated
Acad. Academy
A.D. anno Domini [in the year of the Lord]
alt. altitude
A.M. ante meridiem [before noon]; Artium Magister [Master of Arts]
AM amplitude modulation
Assn. Association
at. no. atomic number
at. wt. atomic weight
Aug. August
Ave. Avenue
AWOL absent without leave
b. born, born in
B.A. Bachelor of Arts
B.C. Before Christ
b.p. boiling point
B.S. Bachelor of Science
Btu British thermal unit(s)
C Celsius (centigrade)
c. circa [about]
cal calorie(s)
Capt. Captain
cent. century, centuries
cm centimeter(s)
co. county
Col. Colonel; Colossians
Comdr. Commander
Corp. Corporation
Cpl. Corporal
cu cubic
d. died, died in
D.C. District of Columbia
Dec. December
dept. department
dist. district
div. division
Dr. doctor
E east, eastern
ed. edited, edition, editor(s)
est. established; estimated
et al. et alii [and others]
F Fahrenheit
Feb. February
fl. floruit [flourished]
fl oz fluid ounce(s)
FM frequency modulation
ft foot, feet
gal. gallon(s)
Gen. General, Genesis
GMT Greenwich mean time
GNP gross national product
GOP Grand Old Party (Republican Party)
Gov. governor
grad. graduated, graduated at
H hour(s)
Hon. the Honorable
hr hour(s)
i.e. id est [that is]
in. inch(es)
inc. incorporated
Inst. Institute, Institution
IRA Irish Republican Army
IRS Internal Revenue Service
Jan. January
Jr. Junior
K Kelvin
kg kilogram(s)
km kilometer(s)
£ libra [pound], librae [pounds]
lat. latitude
lb libra [pound], librae [pounds]
Lib. Library
long. longitude
Lt. Lieutenant
Ltd. Limited
m meter(s)
M minute(s)
M.D. Medicinae Doctor [Doctor of Medicine]
mg milligram(s)
mi mile(s)
min minute(s)
mm millimeter(s)
mph miles per hour
Mr. Mister (always abbreviated)
Mrs. Mistress (always abbreviated)
Msgr Monsignor
mt. Mount, Mountain
mts. mountains
Mus. Museum
N north; Newton(s)
NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NE northeast
no. number
Nov. November
OAS Organization of American States
Oct. October
Op. Opus [work]
oz ounce(s)
pl. plural
pop. population
pseud. pseudonym
pt. part(s)
pt pint(s)
pub. published; publisher
qt quart(s)
Rev. Revelation; the Reverend
rev. revised
R.N. registered nurse
rpm revolution(s) per minute
RR railroad
S south
S second(s)
SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
SEC Securities and Exchange Commission
sec second(s); secant
Sept. September
Ser. Series
Sgt. Sergeant
sq square
Sr. Senior
SSR Soviet Socialist Republic
St. Saint; Street
UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund
uninc. unincorporated
Univ. University
U.S. United States
USA United States Army
USAF United States Air Force
USCG United States Coast Guard
USMC United States Marine Corps
USN United States Navy
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
VFW Veterans of Foreign Wars
VISTA Volunteers in Service to America
vol. volume(s)
vs. versus
W west; watt(s)
WHO World Health Organization
wt. weight
yd yard(s)
YMCA Young Men's Christian Association
YWCA Young Women's Christian Association

Whatchamacallits, or Names for the Little Things
Are you often stumped by the name of a little thing? Do you call common objects whatchamacallits? Help is on the way! There are names for those little things in life.

Belt: tongue, punch holes, keeper
Broom: neck (where stick is attached to broom)
Clothespin: grinning hole, claw end
Comb: spine, teeth
Door: lintel, jamb, threshold
Eyeglasses: eye wires (surround glass), budge (bridges the nose), temples (hook over the ears)
Hair dryer: barrel, air vents
Hat: brim, crown
Hot dog roll: hinge
Hot dog string: linker twine
Nail: shank, head
Padlock: shackle (movable arched bar)
Pail: ears (where handle attaches to pail)
Paper clips: legs (straight), bends (rounded)
Safety pin: shaft
Scissors: blades, pivot, bow handle (large), ring handle (small)
Shoe: aglet (tip of shoelace), welt (between upper and sole), counter (back panel)
Sock: toe, gore (back)
Stairs: tread, riser, railing, banister, newel post
Staple: crown, legs
Toothbrush: block handle, block head (where bristles are inserted)
Window: lintel, sill, panes, sash
Zipper: pull tab, slide, teeth

Latin and Greek Word Elements
English is a living language, and it is growing all the time. One way that new words come into the language is when words are borrowed from other languages. New words are also created when words or word elements, such as roots, prefixes, and suffixes, are combined in new ways.

Many English words and word elements can be traced back to Latin and Greek. Often you can guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word if you know the meaning.

A word root is a part of a word. It contains the core meaning of the word, but it cannot stand alone. A prefix is also a word part that cannot stand alone. It is placed at the beginning of a word to change its meaning. A suffix is a word part that is placed at the end of a word to change its meaning. Often you can guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word if you know the meaning of its parts; that is, the root and any prefixes or suffixes that are attached to it.

Latin Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes
Latin was the language spoken by the ancient Romans. As the Romans conquered most of Europe, the Latin language spread throughout the region. Over time, the Latin spoken in different areas developed into separate languages, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. These languages are considered “sisters,” as they all descended from Latin, their “mother” language.

In 1066 England was conquered by William, duke of Normandy, which is in northern France. For several hundred years after the Norman invasion, French was the language of court and polite society in England. It was during this period that many French words were borrowed into English. Linguists estimate that some 60% of our common everyday vocabulary today comes from French. Thus many Latin words came into English indirectly through French.

Many Latin words came into English directly, though, too. Monks from Rome brought religious vocabulary as well as Christianity to England beginning in the 6th century. From the Middle Ages onward many scientific, scholarly, and legal terms were borrowed from Latin.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, dictionary writers and grammarians generally felt that English was an imperfect language whereas Latin was perfect. In order to improve the language, they deliberately made up a lot of English words from Latin words. For example, fraternity, from Latin fraternitas, was thought to be better than the native English word brotherhood.

Many English words and word parts can be traced back to Latin and Greek. The following table lists some common Latin roots.

Latin root Basic meaning Example words
-dict- to say contradict, dictate, diction, edict, predict
-duc- to lead, bring, take deduce, produce, reduce
-gress- to walk digress, progress, transgress
-ject- to throw eject, inject, interject, project, reject, subject
-pel- to drive compel, dispel, impel, repel
-pend- to hang append, depend, impend, pendant, pendulum
-port- to carry comport, deport, export, import, report, support
-scrib-, -script- to write describe, description, prescribe, prescription, subscribe, subscription, transcribe, transcription
-tract- to pull, drag, draw attract, contract, detract, extract, protract, retract, traction
-vert- to turn convert, divert, invert, revert

From the example words in the above table, it is easy to see how roots combine with prefixes to form new words. For example, the root -tract-, meaning “to pull,” can combine with a number of prefixes, including de- and re-. Detract means literally “to pull away” (de-, “away, off”) and retract means literally “to pull back” (re-, “again, back”). The following table gives a list of Latin prefixes and their basic meanings.

Latin prefix Basic meaning Example words
co- together coauthor, coedit, coheir
de- away, off; generally indicates reversal or removal in English deactivate, debone, defrost, decompress, deplane
dis- not, not any disbelief, discomfort, discredit, disrepair, disrespect
inter- between, among international, interfaith, intertwine, intercellular, interject
non- not nonessential, nonmetallic, nonresident, nonviolence, nonskid, nonstop
post- after postdate, postwar, postnasal, postnatal
pre- before preconceive, preexist, premeditate, predispose, prepossess, prepay
re- again; back, backward rearrange, rebuild, recall, remake, rerun, rewrite
sub- under submarine, subsoil, subway, subhuman, substandard
trans- across, beyond, through transatlantic, transpolar

Words and word roots may also combine with suffixes. Here are examples of some important English suffixes that come from Latin:

Latin suffix Basic meaning Example words
-able, -ible forms adjectives and means “capable or worthy of” likable, flexible
-ation forms nouns from verbs creation, civilization, automation, speculation, information
-fy, -ify forms verbs and means “to make or cause to become” purify, acidify, humidify
-ment forms nouns from verbs entertainment, amazement, statement, banishment
-ty, -ity forms nouns from adjectives subtlety, certainty, cruelty, frailty, loyalty, royalty; eccentricity, electricity, peculiarity, similarity, technicality

Greek Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes
The following table lists some common Greek roots.

Greek root Basic meaning Example words
-anthrop- human misanthrope, philanthropy, anthropomorphic
-chron- time anachronism, chronic, chronicle, synchronize, chronometer
-dem- people democracy, demography, demagogue, endemic, pandemic
-morph- form amorphous, metamorphic, morphology
-path- feeling, suffering empathy, sympathy, apathy, apathetic, psychopathic
-pedo-, -ped- child, children pediatrician, pedagogue
-philo-, -phil- having a strong affinity or love for philanthropy, philharmonic, philosophy
-phon- sound polyphonic, cacophony, phonetics

The following table gives a list of Greek prefixes and their basic meanings.

Greek prefix Basic meaning Example words
a-, an- without achromatic, amoral, atypical, anaerobic
anti-, ant- opposite; opposing anticrime, antipollution, antacid
auto- self, same autobiography, automatic, autopilot
bio-, bi- life, living organism biology, biophysics, biotechnology, biopsy
geo- Earth; geography geography, geomagnetism, geophysics, geopolitics
hyper- excessive, excessively hyperactive, hypercritical, hypersensitive
micro- small microcosm, micronucleus, microscope
mono- one, single, alone monochrome, monosyllable, monoxide
neo- new, recent neonatal, neophyte, neoconservatism, neofascism, neodymium
pan- all panorama, panchromatic, pandemic, pantheism
thermo-, therm- heat thermal, thermometer, thermostat

Words and word roots may also combine with suffixes. Here are examples of some important English suffixes that come from Greek:

Greek suffix Basic meaning Example words
-ism forms nouns and means “the act, state, or theory of” criticism, optimism, capitalism
-ist forms agent nouns from verbs ending in -ize or nouns ending in -ism and is used like -er conformist, copyist, cyclist
-ize forms verbs from nouns and adjectives formalize, jeopardize, legalize, modernize, emphasize, hospitalize, industrialize, computerize
-gram something written or drawn, a record cardiogram, telegram
-graph something written or drawn; an instrument for writing, drawing, or recording monograph, phonograph, seismograph
-logue, -log speech, discourse; to speak monologue, dialogue, travelogue
-logy discourse, expression; science, theory, study phraseology, biology, dermatology
-meter, -metry measuring device; measure spectrometer, geometry, kilometer, parameter, perimeter
-oid forms adjectives and nouns and means “like, resembling” or “shape, form” humanoid, spheroid, trapezoid
-phile one that loves or has a strong affinity for; loving audiophile, Francophile
-phobe, -phobia one that fears a specified thing; an intense fear of a specified thing agoraphobe, agoraphobia, xenophobe, xenophobia
-phone sound; device that receives or emits sound; speaker of a language homophone, geophone, telephone, Francophone

Glossary of Poetry Terms
accent
The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. In the word poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable.
alexandrine
A line of poetry that has 12 syllables. The name probably comes from a medieval romance about Alexander the Great that was written in 12-syllable lines.
alliteration
The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words: “What would the world be, once bereft/Of wet and wildness?” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”)
anapest
A metrical foot of three syllables, two short (or unstressed) followed by one long (or stressed), as in seventeen and to the moon. The anapest is the reverse of the dactyl.
antithesis
A figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other. An example of antithesis is “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)
apostrophe
Words that are spoken to a person who is absent or imaginary, or to an object or abstract idea. The poem God's World by Edna St. Vincent Millay begins with an apostrophe: “O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!/Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!/Thy mists that roll and rise!”
assonance
The repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds: “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,/Thou foster child of silence and slow time” (“Ode to a Grecian Urn,” John Keats).
ballad
A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is an example of a ballad.
ballade
A type of poem, usually with three stanzas of seven, eight, or ten lines and a shorter final stanza (or envoy) of four or five lines. All stanzas end with the same one-line refrain.
blank verse
Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.
caesura
A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line. There is a caesura right after the question mark in the first line of this sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
canzone
A medieval Italian lyric poem, with five or six stanzas and a shorter concluding stanza (or envoy). The poets Petrarch and Dante Alighieri were masters of the canzone.
carpe diem
A Latin expression that means “seize the day.” Carpe diem poems urge the reader (or the person to whom they are addressed) to live for today and enjoy the pleasures of the moment. A famous carpe diem poem by Robert Herrick begins “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”
chanson de geste
An epic poem of the 11th to the 14th century, written in Old French, which details the exploits of a historical or legendary figure, especially Charlemagne.
classicism
The principles and ideals of beauty that are characteristic of Greek and Roman art, architecture, and literature. Examples of classicism in poetry can be found in the works of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, which are characterized by their formality, simplicity, and emotional restraint.
conceit
A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different. An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” and in Emily Dickinson's poem “There is no frigate like a book.”
consonance
The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss.
couplet
In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet.
dactyl
A metrical foot of three syllables, one long (or stressed) followed by two short (or unstressed), as in happily. The dactyl is the reverse of the anapest.
elegy
A poem that laments the death of a person, or one that is simply sad and thoughtful. An example of this type of poem is Thomas Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
enjambment
The continuation of a complete idea (a sentence or clause) from one line or couplet of a poem to the next line or couplet without a pause. An example of enjambment can be found in the first line of Joyce Kilmer's poem Trees: “I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree.” Enjambment comes from the French word for “to straddle.”
envoy
The shorter final stanza of a poem, as in a ballade.
epic
A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which tell about the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus on his voyage home after the war.
epigram
A very short, witty poem: “Sir, I admit your general rule,/That every poet is a fool,/But you yourself may serve to show it,/That every fool is not a poet.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
epithalamium (or epithalamion)
A poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom.
feminine rhyme
A rhyme that occurs in a final unstressed syllable: pleasure/leisure, longing/yearning.
figure of speech
A verbal expression in which words or sounds are arranged in a particular way to achieve a particular effect. Figures of speech are organized into different categories, such as alliteration, assonance, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, simile, and synecdoche.
foot
Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed. An anapest has three syllables, two unstressed followed by one stressed.
free verse (also vers libre)
Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set meter.
haiku
A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature.
heptameter
A line of poetry that has seven metrical feet.
heroic couplet
A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter.
hexameter
A line of poetry that has six metrical feet.
hyperbole
A figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for emphasis. Many everyday expressions are examples of hyperbole: tons of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, etc. Hyperbole is the opposite of litotes.
iamb
A metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed). There are four iambs in the line “Come live/ with me/ and be/ my love,” from a poem by Christopher Marlowe. (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The iamb is the reverse of the trochee.
iambic pentameter
A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means “five,” as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry. An example of an iambic pentameter line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is “But soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?” Another, from Richard III, is “A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/ a horse!” (The stressed syllables are in bold.)
idyll, or idyl
Either a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene, or a long poem that tells a story about heroic deeds or extraordinary events set in the distant past. Idylls of the King, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
lay
A long narrative poem, especially one that was sung by medieval minstrels called trouvères. The Lais of Marie de France are lays.
limerick
A light, humorous poem of five usually anapestic lines with the rhyme scheme of aabba.
litotes
A figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite. Some examples of litotes: no small victory, not a bad idea, not unhappy. Litotes is the opposite of hyperbole.
lyric
A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style.
masculine rhyme
A rhyme that occurs in a final stressed syllable: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve.
metaphor
A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected. Some examples of metaphors: the world's a stage, he was a lion in battle, drowning in debt, and a sea of troubles.
meter
The arrangement of a line of poetry by the number of syllables and the rhythm of accented (or stressed) syllables.
metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another with which it is closely associated. For example, in the expression The pen is mightier than the sword, the word pen is used for “the written word,” and sword is used for “military power.”
narrative
Telling a story. Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems.
ode
A lyric poem that is serious and thoughtful in tone and has a very precise, formal structure. John Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous example of this type of poem.
onomatopoeia
A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds. Examples of onomatopoeic words are buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, and tick-tock. Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale” not only uses onomatopoeia, but calls our attention to it: “Forlorn! The very word is like a bell/To toll me back from thee to my sole self!” Another example of onomatopoeia is found in this line from Tennyson's Come Down, O Maid: “The moan of doves in immemorial elms,/And murmuring of innumerable bees.” The repeated “m/n” sounds reinforce the idea of “murmuring” by imitating the hum of insects on a warm summer day.
ottava rima
A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in 8-line “octaves” with the rhyme scheme abababcc.
pastoral
A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way.
pentameter
A line of poetry that has five metrical feet.
personification
A figure of speech in which things or abstract ideas are given human attributes: dead leaves dance in the wind, blind justice.
poetry
A type of literature that is written in meter.
quatrain
A stanza or poem of four lines.
refrain
A line or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem, usually after every stanza.
rhyme
The occurrence of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more words. When the rhyme occurs in a final stressed syllable, it is said to be masculine: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve. When the rhyme occurs in a final unstressed syllable, it is said to be feminine: longing/yearning. The pattern of rhyme in a stanza or poem is shown usually by using a different letter for each final sound. In a poem with an aabba rhyme scheme, the first, second, and fifth lines end in one sound, and the third and fourth lines end in another.
rhyme royal
A type of poetry consisting of stanzas of seven lines in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ababbcc. Rhyme royal was an innovation introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer.
romanticism
The principles and ideals of the Romantic movement in literature and the arts during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romanticism, which was a reaction to the classicism of the early 18th century, favored feeling over reason and placed great emphasis on the subjective, or personal, experience of the individual. Nature was also a major theme. The great English Romantic poets include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
scansion
The analysis of a poem's meter. This is usually done by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables in each line and then, based on the pattern of the stresses, dividing the line into feet.
senryu
A short Japanese poem that is similar to a haiku in structure but treats human beings rather than nature, often in a humorous or satiric way.
simile
A figure of speech in which two things are compared using the word “like” or “as.” An example of a simile using like occurs in Langston Hughes's poem “Harlem”: “What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?”
sonnet
A lyric poem that is 14 lines long. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line “sestet,” with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three quatrains and a final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English sonnets are written generally in iambic pentameter.
spondee
A metrical foot of two syllables, both of which are long (or stressed).
stanza
Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme.
stress
The prominence or emphasis given to particular syllables. Stressed syllables usually stand out because they have long, rather than short, vowels, or because they have a different pitch or are louder than other syllables.
synecdoche
A figure of speech in which a part is used to designate the whole or the whole is used to designate a part. For example, the phrase “all hands on deck” means “all men on deck,” not just their hands. The reverse situation, in which the whole is used for a part, occurs in the sentence “The U.S. beat Russia in the final game,” where the U.S. and Russia stand for “the U.S. team” and “the Russian team,” respectively.
tanka
A Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the rest of seven.
terza rima
A type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in three-line “tercets” with the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc, etc. The poet Dante is credited with inventing terza rima, which he used in his Divine Comedy. Terza rima was borrowed into English by Chaucer, and it has been used by many English poets, including Milton, Shelley, and Auden.
tetrameter
A line of poetry that has four metrical feet.
trochee
A metrical foot of two syllables, one long (or stressed) and one short (or unstressed). An easy way to remember the trochee is to memorize the first line of a lighthearted poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which demonstrates the use of various kinds of metrical feet: “Trochee/ trips from/ long to/ short.” (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The trochee is the reverse of the iamb.
trope
A figure of speech, such as metaphor or metonymy, in which words are not used in their literal (or actual) sense but in a figurative (or imaginative) sense.
verse
A single metrical line of poetry, or poetry in general (as opposed to prose).

Some Basic Phrases in Other Languages
The language
itself hello good bye please thank you English yes no traditional
toast
German Deutsch hallo auf Wiedersehen bitte danke Englisch ja nein prosit
Dutch Nederlands hallo tot ziens alstublieft dankjewel engels ja nee proost
Danish dansk hej farvel (1) tak engelsk ja nej skål
Swedish svenska hej hejdå tack tack engelska ja nej skål
French français bonjour au revoir s'il vous plaît merci anglais oui non santé
Spanish español hola adiós por favor gracias inglés sí no salud
Italian italiano ciao arrivederci per favore grazie inglese si no salute
Hebrew ivrit shalom lehitraot bevakasha toda anglit ken lo le-chaim
Irish Gaeilge fáilte slán le do thoil go raibh maith agat Béarla sea2 ní ha3 slainte
Swahili Kiswahili (4) kwa heri tafadhali asante Kingereza ndiyo siyo —
Basque Euskara kaixo agur mesedez Eskerrik asko ingelesa bai ez —
Japanese nihongo konnichiwa sayonara kudasai arigatou eigo hai iie kanpai
Esperanto Esperanto saluton gis la revido mi petas dankon la angla jes ne je via sano
Finnish suomi päivää näkemiin ole hyvä kiitos englanti kyllä ei kippis
Indonesian bahasa Indonesia selamat pagi selamat tinggal5 tolong terima kasih bahasa
Inggris ya tidak —
Tok Pisin Tok Pisin gut de gut bai plis tenkyu Inglis yes nogat —
Portuguese Português olá adeus Por favor obrigado Inglês sim não saúde

Renegade, mosquito, mustang, booby—English uses many words with Spanish origins. In fact, some scholars say Spanish has contributed 10,000 words to English.

A Linguistic Fiesta

Many adopted Spanish words are food terms, such as tamale, taco, salsa, cilantro, guacamole, enchilada, oregano, and burrito. They are usually used in their original Spanish forms. Others, such as tuna, which comes from the Spanish atún, are variations of the original.

Other food words are of American Indian origin, but came into English via Spanish. Tomato, for instance, is derived from the Spanish tomate, a corruption of the Nahuatl word tomatl. Chocolate comes from the Nahuatl word xocolatl. Potato comes from papa, meaning white potato in the Inca language, Quechua; and batata, sweet potato in the Taino Indian language of the Caribbean. Banana, on the other hand, entered Spanish from the West African languages of Wolof, Mandingo, and Fulani.

Animal Names

A number of animal words went directly from Indian languages into Spanish and then English. Puma originated in Quechua, while jaguar comes from yaguar, a word of the Guarani who live in what is now Paraguay, and iguana is a modification of iwana, used by the Arawak and Carib of the West Indies.

Riding Through the Desert

When Americans began exploring the Southwest in the early 19th century they encountered an established Mexican culture, which has provided English with many everyday words. Some involve horseback riding, including rodeo, lasso, and lariat, since the horse was a key part of frontier life for both Mexicans and Americans.

Ranch, a common English word today, hails from the Mexican Spanish rancho, meaning ranch, settlement, or meat ration.

Sailing the Spanish Main

Hurricane, tobacco, and hammock came to English from the Caribbean. In the 17th and 18th centuries American and English traders plied the ports of the West Indies and South America. Weather often required extended stays in these ports, acquainting the English speakers with Spanish culture.

In addition, buccaneers in search of treasure sailed "the Spanish Main," the South American mainland from the Orinoco River in present-day Venezuela to Panama. It is likely they also acquired many Spanish words now used in English.

Common Words with Spanish Origins

Alligator: el lagarto, the lizard
Booby: bobo, silly or selfish, from the Latin for stammering, balbus
Bronco: meaning wild or rough
Cafeteria: cafetería, a coffee shop
Cargo: cargar, to load
Cigar, Cigarette: cigarro
Comrade: camarada, old Spanish for barracks company or roommate
Guerrilla: a small raiding party or fighting force
Hoosegow: from juzgado, a tribunal or courtroom, past participle of juzgar, to judge
Mustang: mestengo or mesteño, a stray animal
Patio: courtyard in Spanish
Peccadillo: a form of pecado, to sin
Renegade: renegado, deserter or outlaw
Savvy: saber, to know
Tornado: tornar, to turn, tronada, thunderstorm
Vamoose: vamos, let's go

Words with the same meaning in both languages include aficionado, armada, barracuda, mosquito, tobacco, and vanilla.

American Indian Loan Words

by Holly Hartman

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From their earliest contact with traders and explorers, American Indians borrowed foreign words, often to describe things not previously encountered. In this way, Russian was the source of the Alaskan Yupik word for "cat" and an Athabaskan word for "bullets." Native Canadian groups adopted French terms still in use, and southwestern groups in what is now the U.S. borrowed numerous Spanish terms.

The language exchange went both ways. Today, thousands of place names across North America have Indian origins—as do hundreds of everyday English words.

Many of these "loan words" are nouns from the Algonquian languages that were once widespread along the Atlantic coast. English colonists, encountering unfamiliar plants and animals—among them moose, opossum, and skunk—borrowed Indian terms to name them. Pronunciations generally changed, and sometimes the newcomers shortened words they found difficult; for instance, "pocohiquara" became "hickory."

Some U.S. English Words with Indian Origins

anorak from the Greenlandic Inuit "annoraq"

bayou from the Choctaw "bayuk"

chipmunk from the Ojibwa "ajidamoon," red squirrel

hickory from the Virginia Algonquian "pocohiquara"

hominy from the Virginia Algonquian "uskatahomen"

igloo from the Canadian Inuit "iglu," house
RELATED LINKS
American Indian Tribes

Spanish Loan Words

Asian Loan Words

Foreign Words and Phrases

kayak from the Alaskan Yupik "qayaq"

moccasin from the Virginia Algonquian

moose from the Eastern Abenaki "mos"

papoose from the Narragansett "papoos," child

pecan from the Illinois "pakani"

powwow from the Narragansett "powwaw," shaman

quahog from the Narragansett "poquauhock"

squash from the Narragansett "askutasquash"

succotash from the Narragansett "msickquatash," boiled corn

tepee from the Sioux "tipi," dwelling

toboggan from the Micmac "topaghan"

tomahawk from the Virginia Algonquian "tamahaac"

totem from the Ojibwa "nindoodem," my totem

wampum from the Massachusett "wampumpeag"

wigwam from the Eastern Abenaki "wik'wom"