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I stumbled on an abandoned word site, in which real words and made-up words were mixed.
I thought it might be fun to have members try to separate the real words from the fakes.
I don't know which are which. The game could start by anybody posting a list of the fake
words, and seeing if other members agree that they are fake.
1 Shroff 2 snead 3 geat 4 cerumen 5 lanose 6 infangtheof 7 cresset 8 zurf 9 sanies 10 uliginose
11 Swoopstake 12 looby 13 wlonk 14 oxyurous 15 eupatrid 16 ulatrichi 17 thalloid 18 sastruga 19 notornis
20 Scovel 21 ustulation 22 pernio 23 baubee 24 glusk 25 salacacabia 26 guimpe 27 loco-foco 28 modesty
29 Nosema 30 cottabus 31 jequirity 32 cypripareunia 33 zeme 34 manille 35 temulent 36bagasse
37 Gonotheca 38 afflatus 39 holothurian 40 sulcate 41 stringhalt 42 latticinio 43 gosport 44 murnival
So, lets see lists of the numbers of fake words, and some arguments about which are fake.
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I'll take a stab at the first line:
Real words:
4 cerumen 5 lanose 7 cresset 10 uliginous... They look like real words--or words that I've seen in readng. I can't tell you a single meaning here offhand, but maybe cerumen [why do I think of ear wax?] and cresset I could get on a multiple choice. Lanose is one of the least familiar, but I like the look of it. Uliginous looks possible--it may be a word, but, like lanose above, I don't have any idea what it could mean. It sure looks like ugly nose, but I realize that's just a fanciful reading of it. I don't know what the root would be: uligi? Isn't lignious a word?
Fake words:
1 Shroff 2 snead 3 geat 6 infangtheof 8 zurf 9 sanies
...now these look fake. They look like word wannabe's to me: shroff looks like a take-off on doff; snead looks like a name; geat looks like great with the "r" left out; infangtheof--if that's a word in a standard dictionary, I cannot wait to hear what it means--I doubt it's a dictionary word; zurf, at best, looks like slang; sanies looks like slang, too.
Where is this poor, abandoned website? Is there a ghost town for abandoned sites? Sounds like great potential for a short story--"The Ghoul Who Walked the Streets of the Abandoned Website Ghost Town"
Befuddled regards,
WW
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Try some of these to start:
45. marinaceous
46. catamaran
47. Weltanschauung
48. Heiligedankesang
49. andropexy
50. lithotripsy
51. lithorrhaphy
52. lithotomy
53. arthrognathous
54. hydrospeleology
55. manticore
56. magniforence
57. xysma
58. nictation
59. comprobity
60. micturition
61. parturition
62. hamartation
63. zygoma
64. afformation
65. astrologous
None of them is in our esteemed local spell-checker, but that doesn't help much either way...
EDIT: Sorry, I took your initial post to be a suggestion "let's make up some words." I withdraw the list. Maybe a second round, later.
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Partial list.
4 cerumen is wax, ear- and perhaps other as well
5 lanose means wool-like.
17 thalloid should mean not unlike thallium, the element, and if it isn't a real word it should be
28 modesty probably has additional meanings beside the self-deprecating one we use regularly
36 bagasse - isn't that the left-over cotton fibers after processing? I know if you are exposed to too much if it you may get a nice euphonious lung disease called "bagassosis"
38 afflatus - something smells, here
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I think bagasse may, too, be some part of a fruit like the orange--maybe the white skin inside the orange skin? Or maybe the white flesh in which the orange sacs are deposted? Must go look it up.
So happy to read that cerumen is ear wax! It is gratifying to know that sometimes the recesses in my brain are working since the parts on the front burner often do not!
Bagasse regards,
WordWax
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From Wordsmyth:
1. the pulp that remains after juice has been removed from sugar cane or sugar beet.
Definition 2. a type of paper made from such pulp.
Wonder why I was thinking oranges?
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I want to jump in real quick Bill, and get the real easy ones like [# 28] Modesty which is obviously fake. #28 was the late NASCAR driver Davey Allison's number for one thing, and another thing is that I've heard the term "false modesty" all my short adult life. Modesty is obviously a trick word turn of Modeste, Texas, which in [#16] ulatrichi, the language of the Hopi indians, means, "Land of Flat." Post edit: ( No you didn't Wordwind, I anticipated nit-picking and corrected "Thong" to "Thing" three seconds before your Post got out of the post. so there... 
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milum observes:
#28 was the late NASCAR driver Davey Allison's number for one thing, and another thong is that I've heard the term "false modesty" all my short adult life.
Thongs = false modesty?
Gotcha!
Cresset is a bonafide word. Thought so. Here's MW on it:
": an iron vessel or basket used for holding an illuminant (as oil) and mounted as a torch or suspended as a lantern"
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let's start with the real ones -- these leap out at me:
cerumen, looby, loco-foco, modesty(!?), temulent, afflatus
that's only six(6), and I'd guess about half should be real, so that leaves maybe 16.
yes, WW, cerumen is ear wax. zarf is a word, but I doubt zurf. shroff(7) is real; it means moneychanger. let's research infangtheof; Mrs. Byrne has infangthief(8?) (the right of a feudal lord to punish thieves), and that's too close.
edit: infangthief
Forms: 1–2 infangenţeof, 3 infangen(e)-, infangethef, 4–6 infangthef, -e, (6 infanthef, infanketheiff), 7 infangtheefe, -theif(e), 9 Hist. infangthief. Also erron. 6–7 infang-, 8 infangentheft.
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"BAGASSE: the pulp ... from sugar cane or sugar beet."
--Wonder why I was thinking oranges?
Same reason I was thinking of cotton, he said sweetly ;-)
(If it _had_ been orange peel, it would have been said zestily)
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wwh:
Suppose one of these words is a proper noun? Does it still qualify?
Reason I'm asking is I just checked one of the words in the first row, which I'm working on, and one of 'em isn't a common noun, but is a proper noun. Does that count? Especially if you typed it with a lower case letter--and it requires an upper case one?
Not that we need rules, but I'm just asking to fine tune this goofy game.
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uliginose(9) is real! it means muddy or swampy (uliginous)
let's see, we've also got lanose(10) and bagasse(11)?
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I did lousy. My identified correct words in the first line were words. But so were five of the seven I'd identified as not being words. I ain't sayin' nothin', but I will paste one of the definitions of one of the words I'd thought was a fake:
A thin, fetid, greenish fluid consisting of serum and pus discharged from a wound, ulcer, or fistula. . Only two words in the first line were fakes according to OneLook.com---but then OneLook.com has been known to leave out words.
Acronyms don't count, do they, Bill?
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tsuwm:
zurf turned out to be a word listed on OneLook. FTR.
infangtheof is one that isn't a word. And there's one other on the first row that ain't one either--at least on OneLook.
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it looks like zurf is an alternate spelling of my zarf, and I think we're going to have to accept infangtheof.
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But why, tsuwm, why do we have to accept infangtheof? It ain't listed in a dictionary so far, so you couldn't even play it on No-Dictionary-Barred Scrabble, right? (Come on, give me a break! I've only got four points in the top line for real words, and two for fake ones, including the misspelled infangtheof! I'm eating crow for supper before I attempt the second line.)
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why?
infangthief comes from OE. infangenţéof, which gives some credence to the theof spelling, but more to the point, I challenge you to say infangtheof so that it seems different to the "real" word.
p.s. - what's the other one? it looks like the whole first line is real..
p.p.s. - this whole thing is going to require some latitude and not a few salt grains. ferinstance, swoopstake is given as an obsolete form of sweepstake.
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A challenge? You wanna challenge?!?
Well, let's redesign what you just wrote:
infangthief comes from OE. infangenţéof, which gives some credence to the theof spelling, but more to the point, I challenge you to say infangtheof so that it seems different to the "real" word.
Altered spelling, and we're gonna say, according to yer reasoning these be all words:
infangthief komes frum OhEe. infangenţéof, whitch givs som creadince twu thea theof speling, buht moarre twu thea poynt, Iye chalenge ywu twu sae infangtheof soa thatt itt seyms diferent twu thea "reale" wurd.
Gud greefe!
WW
P.S. I only found zurf as an acronym on Onelook.
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no, no... you missed my point: I challenge you to say infangtheof different to infangthief. I hope that this wasn't meant as a spelling contest.
how about geat as an old form of gate?
p.s. - OED gives zarf and zurf equal billing.
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Infangtheof:
Ah-hem:
In-FANG-thee-ove
Now is that how you pronounce any of those examples you listed, tsuwm?
P.S. Too bad OneLook doesn't include the Great Mister Ed.
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Dear Ww: snead? Remember famous golfer Sam Snead? A variant spelling of handle of scythe,
more usual spelling "snath".
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>is that how you pronounce any of those examples...
now we're getting into my area of nescience, but I'm sure Faldage will leap in to straighten me out: the way I understand this stuff is that since there were no standards, spellings varied wildly even though everyone pronounced things pretty much the same. so yeah, a theof was just a thief.
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Yeah, I got the snead-scythe connection on OneLook--but the one I was first questioning was geat, which wasn't included in lower case on my source at home, but I did find it lower case later on OneLook.
Amazing. That entire first line of words on this thread. And the idea that sanies is pus--yecch! Although still don't think we oughtta count infangtheof. I may take a crack at the second line. Seems you'd be safer saying they're all words!
It was cool learning the curved handle of the scythe is called the snead. That sounds like a term of art to me. Lewis Carroll, were he here, would enjoy playing around with snead and scythe.
Edit: Come to think of it, Bill, you old devil, you might have pulled all these words together, made up the entire abandoned webstie story, just to get us discussing a bunch of words! Ha! If so, it worked!
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Ain't listed in OneLook! No wlonk! I think wlonk is the only word there that's not a word. murnival turned out to be any set of set matching cards in the game of gleek, which is a word, too, but not on the list. Edit: zeme ain't in OneLook either.Edit 2: glusk ain't eitherA long wavelike ridge of snow, formed by the wind and found on the polar plains. That's sastruga. Wonder what a long wavelike ridge of snow would be called on plains not polar? A mop for sweeping ovens; a maulkin. = a scovel. I don't sweep my oven. Guess that's why I've never heard of a scovel. I suppose we're talkin' very large ovens here--perhaps one's fired up by Fish's phoenix. Another Edit: Cottobus is only listed on Onelook in a Britannica reference. There are two types of Cottobus, but the first is worth quoting here since it appears that this ancient game was a strange game--sinking saucers with wine. Now how was this done? Did the Greeks spit wine into the saucers or did they take handfuls and toss the wine at the saucers? I mean, I've heard of bobbing for apples, but sinking saucers with wine? Strange game. Here's from the Britannica link: "COTTABUS (Gr. i Various modifications of the original principle of the game were gradually introduced, but for practical purposes we may reckon two varieties. (I) In the Kbrra/3os & 6~vl36.4we shallow saucers (6~i,~3a4ia) were floated in a basin or mixing-bowl filled with water; the object was to sink the saucers by throwing the wine into them, and the competitor who sank the greatest number was considered victorious, and received the prize, which consisted of cakes or sweetmeats." http://17.1911encyclopedia.org/C/CO/COTTABUS.htm
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Come to think of it, Bill, you old devil, you might have pulled all these words together, made up the entire abandoned webstie story, just to get us discussing a bunch of words! Ha! If so, it worked!
I think you may be on to something (or on something), Ws.
zeme - obs. form of seam
glusk - [obs] To squint; implied in glusker, one who squints;
wlonk - [obs] 1. Proud, haughty.
Beowulf 341 Ellenrof+wlanc Wedera leod+heard under helme. c1175 Lamb. Hom. 35 He wes prud & wlonc. a1225 Leg. Kath. 844 Nawt wiđ wit ah wiđ wind of ane wlonke wordes. a1300 Cursor M. 6397 Ţir Iuus ţat o will war wlanck, Ţai cund him ai ful litell thanck.
2. Rich, splendid, fine, magnificent: in later use esp. as a conventional epithet in alliterative verse.
Beowulf 2833 Mađmćhta wlonc. a1000 Phśnix 100 FuĽel feţrum wlonc. c1230 Hali Meid. (1922) 43 & tine wide wahes wlonke & welefulle. a1250 Owl & Night. 489 Sumeres tide is alto wlonc. c1325 Song of Merci 3 in E.E.P. (1862) 118 Wlanke deor on grounde gan glide. c1350 Will. Palerne 1634 A while wol i stinte of ţis wlonke murţe. 13+ E.E. Allit. P. A. 122 Wod & water & wlonk playnez. Ibid. 903, I schulde not tempte ţy wyt so wlonc. a1400–50 Wars Alex. 5089 A worthi wedow & a wlonk. c1400 Anturs Arth. 347 Wlonkest in wede. c1450 Holland Howlat 553 Archebald the honorable+Weddit that wlonk wicht. 15+ Tayis Bank 118 (Bann. MS.) Joy wes within and joy without, Vnder that wlonkest waw.
b. Rich in moisture or sap; rank; lush.
1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xi. xi. (Tollem. MS.), Snow+norischeţ and fedeţ good herbes and makeţ hem wlonke [orig. impinguit; ed. 1495 cranke; ed. 1535 ranke]. c1440 Pallad. on Husb. iii. 449 The potters cley, the wlonk [uliginosa], or sondy lene,+nys nought.
B. as n. A fair or beautiful one.
?a1400 Morte Arth. 3338, I went to that wlonke, and wynly hire gretis. a1508 Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen 36 Of thir fair wlonkes,+Ane wes ane wedow. Ibid. 150 The wedo to the tothir wlonk warpit ther wordis.
all thanks to you know what.
edit: but then, it didn't really work; it mostly started a frenzy of LIU. ha!
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I'm sorry. The statute of limitations has kicked in on this word. Words in English do not start with wl. It's outta the language.
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that's the problem with this list: where do you draw the line? wlonk? geat?? infangtheof?!
if the game was to identify which words have become obsolete....
I think wof'doc had it right, "something smells, here."
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Well, I'm curious about wlonk. When was wlonk a word? And could Willie Wonker be in any way related to whatever wlonk may have meant, once upon a time?
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just going by the OED citations, from Beowulf trough early C. 16.
>Willie Wonker
careful.. it's but another short step from Wonka > Wonker > Wanker 8 )
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>I'm sorry. The statute of limitations has kicked in on this word. Words in English do not start with wl. It's outta the language.
how wlong has that been the case?
TEd
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Since long before "Faldage" became a handle.
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Welcome to the Wlonk Home Page
The Wlonk is a patented new style of computer input device that is vastly superior to the existing standard. Users
learn it quickly, key almost as fast as they think, and are no longer in danger of repetitive strain injury. They get
ten times the functionality with one tenth the keys. Manufacturing costs are much lower, and a single design
can satisfy all languages in all markets.
Welcome to the Wlonk Home Page
The Wlonk is a patented new style of computer input device that is vastly superior to the existing standard. Users
learn it quickly, key almost as fast as they think, and are no longer in danger of repetitive strain injury. They get
ten times the functionality with one tenth the keys. Manufacturing costs are much lower, and a single design
can satisfy all languages in all markets.
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Queme quyssewes then that coyntlych closed,
His thik thrawen thyghes with thwonges to tachched;
And sithen the brawden bryné of bryght stel rynges
Umbeweved that wyy, upon wlonk stuffe,
And wel bornyst brace upon his both armes,
With gode cowters and gay, and gloves of plate . . .
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(p.178) A govn of engranyt claith right gaily furrit.
A ring with a ryall stane or oyer riche iowell.
Or rest of his rousty raid yoght he wer rede wod
For all ye buddis of iohne blunt quhen he abone clymis.
Me think ye baid deir aboucht sa bawth ar his werkis
And yus i sell him solace yoght i it sour think
Fra sic a syre god zow saif my sueit sisteris deir.
Quhen that ye semely had said hir sentence to end.
Than all yai leuch apon loft with latis full mery
And raucht ye cop round about full off riche wynis
And ralzeit lang or yai wald rest with ryatus speche
The wedo ye toyir wlonk warpit yer wordis.
Now fair sister fallis zow but fenzing to tell.
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Here is a page from takeourword about other old English words startihg with "wl____" http://www.takeourword.com/TOW138/page1.html
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