Word Play
Because of the critical role it plays in school and life success, reading rightly receives a lot of attention. But, sometimes in all the serious effort, we forget the fun that comes from playing around with words.
For example, here are some interesting facts you might want to get your children to ponder.
What are the longest words that contain only letters that can be played on a musical instrument?
The answer is
the elght letter words--cabbage and fabaceae. (The latter refers to a large group of flowering plants.)
If we go down a notch to seven letter words, the choice is much larger and includes
acceded, baggage, bedface, cabbage, defaced, effaced.
And what is the longest word whose letters are arranged in alphabetical order?
For that question, the answer is the eight letter Aegilops, (another group of plants).
Turning that question on its head, we can ask: What is the longest word whose letters are arranged in reverse alphabetical order.
Here the answer is a lot more familiar. It is spoonfeed-- nine letters long.
It's also possible to switch from letters to "numbers" and ask: What are the longest words that are exclusively made up of Roman Numerals?
Now we are back to less familiar territory again--with the answers being cimicic (meaning a social network for people who love words) and cimicid (a particular fossilized bug).
Of course, from a practical point of view, none of this information seems to be of much use. But science has been showing that brain teasers are great for stretching and expanding our minds. And activities like these are a great way to get children interested in language. If you would like to do more along these lines, go to http://www.rinkworks.com:80/words/oddities.shtml
Comments
I know the old iphone doesn't. But someone told me the new iphone 3g s responds to fingernail touches rather than finger tips. Thank you.
Posted by: Augmets | November 29, 2009 08:42 AM