|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,874 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,874 Likes: 2 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,874 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,874 Likes: 2 |
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
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
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... 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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"
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,874 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,874 Likes: 2 |
"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)
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,915
Posts229,845
Members9,197
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
611
guests, and
3
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
