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Nov 25, 2002
This week's themeKangaroo words This week's words indolent rapscallion amicable frangible scion 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargKangaroo words, that's what this week's words are named. Why do we call them Kangaroo words? Not because they originated in Australia. Rather these are marsupial words that carry smaller versions of themselves within their spellings. So "respite" has "rest", "splotch" has "spot", "instructor" has "tutor", and "curtail" has "cut". Sometimes a kangaroo word has two joeys: "feasted" has a pair, "fed" and "ate". Finally, two qualifications: the joey word has to have its letters in order within the parent kangaroo word, but if all the letters are adjacent, e.g. enjoy/joy, it doesn't qualify. This week's AWAD features more kangaroo words. How many of the joeys can you identify? (Hint: the joey of today's word makes an appearance in the second usage example.) indolent(rap-SKAL-yen) noun: A rascal; rogue. [From alteration of rascallion, from rascal.]
"He also disclosed that under the arrangement, indolent chairmen would be
sacked, while hardworking ones would be commended and encouraged by
government."
"The settlement of that province had lately been begun, but, instead of
being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, the
only people fit for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken
shop-keepers and other insolvent debtors, many of indolent and idle
habits, taken out of the jails, who, being set down in the woods,
unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of
a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children
unprovided for." X-BonusGod, to me, it seems, is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper. -R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983) |
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