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Archives: dace

dace \'da_-s\ n, pl dace : a small freshwater fish related to the carp

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Not a very interesting word in its definition, but notice the spelling. All the four letters in dace are taken from the first five characters of the alphabet (4/5). Another remarkable word is facade (5/6). -anu

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From: Wordsmith (wsmith@wordsmith.org)
Date: Fri Aug 12 00:03:04 EDT 1994
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--dace

Following today's posting of "dace," many linguaphiles fished out similar words. Here is today's yield:

Frits Stuurman of ruu.nl wrote about "cab" (he calls the word 100%). He also mentioned a Dutch village by the name of Abcoude, having letters a-e all in right sequence. "Cab" was also sent in by Darin Stumme of uni.edu and Dabe Murphy of umd.edu. Dabe added, "Hey, my name fits in that category too!"

Avid linguaphile Martha O'Kennon of albion.edu was reminded of "another cool game to make words out of the musical letters a-g, like cabbage etc." Sandra Teare from gte.com recalled a Trivial Pursuit question she encountered recently. She asked, "What is the shortest word that uses the letters a-f at least once each?" Any feedback on this one?

Beirne Konarski of summitis.com and Evan Robinson of mit.edu, both came up with "decade."

A.J. Kait calling in from reach.com had a pair, "How about debacle - all of the first five letters, and 6/7. Even better is cabled - again, all 5 and 5/6. Is that `L' a coincidence?"

Observant linguaphile Damian Chadwick from ucsc.edu noted that "facade," is special in another way - it can be typed entirely with the left hand.

While we are chasing around the alphabet, anyone heard of the word "abecedarian?" Yes, it is an actual English word meaning "a person learning the alphabet." Interestingly, it also means "one teaching the alphabet."

Tip-tap of raindrops near Lake Erie...
Anu