Oryza Sativa, Gratis

Jeannine sent me a link to Free Rice.

The site hosts a vocabulary word game. They say they will donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations , to reduce world hunger , for each word you get right.

Irrespective of whether this is true, it's a fun way to work on your vocabulary.

Visuwords

Well, I took my own advice and visited a couple of those Web 2.0 sites.

Via Clipmarks, I found Visuwords, which is a site based on Princeton University's Wordnet project.

It shows the relationships between words in a neat graphical way, using colour to denote parts of speech and interconnections.

Learnings From The Times 23487

lavabo: in the mass, the ritual act of washing the celebrant's fingers while he says "Lavabo inter innocentes"; a monastic lavatory; a fixed basin or washstand; a lavatory.

Buttercup, from HMS Pinafore, was a "bumboat" woman.

Words I Discovered Via The Times Crosswords 23484 & 23485

haver: hesitate
Lhasa Apso: a breed of dog
Sachs: (Hans) who was a "mastersinger"
loge: a box in the theatre or opera house

 
The painting is Renoir's "La Loge". I'll let you guess what those are on the left :-).

Now, it's 0515, time for bed ... how I love being on holidays !!

Nuc-u-lar

When researching today's title word, I discovered that the Wikipedia article on "svarabhakti" uses Dubya's horrible mispronunciation of "nuclear" as "nuc-u-lar" as an example.