I have over 200 e-mails in my inbox, and though sometimes I can deal with a lot quickly when I put my mind to it, progress came to a screeching halt when I'm confronted with one from my brother, alerting me to the FreeRice vocabulary game. It's a simple, multiple-choice vocabulary quiz that adjusts to one's abilities, making it suitable for a wide range of players. For each correct answer, 20 grains of rice are donated (funded by advertising on the site) to the United Nations World Food Program. All at one site: good turn, mental workout, and addictive distraction.
This game is particularly useful when there are so many other things you need to be doing that your mind can't concentrate on any of them. :) In my introductory session, I spent about half an hour and got up to Level 49 (of 50) and 3300 grains of rice. This is much better than the Reader's Digest "Word Power" for challenging me.
The fun at the higher levels was in noting the many different ways I was able to get the correct answer. Some I guessed from word roots and endings, some from similarities to others words. Others I knew outright from a wide variety of sources: Swallows and Amazons books, A.W.A.D., hobbies, Peter Wimsey mysteries, you name it. My sister pointed out that a number of the words can be found in Ruth Heller's children's books (though they are by no means children's words).
And for my sister-in-law (the one who will know what I'm talking about), I present the word that made me stop playing and write this post: geoduck!
I manged to get fairly quickly to Level 50, which is currently the highest (they are working on adding more words), but it's difficult to stay there, since a single wrong answer causes a one-level demotion that requires three correct responses to reverse.
If you plan to play the game with any regularity, you'll want to click on the Options link and set it up to remember your vocabulary level and amount of rice donated. The default is to start anew each time, so my first session's level and more than 3000 rice grains were forgotten. But it didn't take me long to recover, and now stand at over 5000. I wonder how much rice that is? I'm not about to go to the pantry and count to find out. I'd rather earn and learn some more....
But I won't now; it's time to get back to work. But geoduck...heh...that's great.
Uncle Vine, digging geoducks in Washington
Geoduck! That is funny.
I gave the game a brief try last week, but quickly saw it could eat up the time I had and decided to put it on hold. I think I was in the low 50's, but got sent back after a few wrong answers.
Being from Seattle, I can't resist this opportunity to break out into THE GEODUCK SONG!
Chorus:
Dig a duck, dig a duck,
Dig a gooey duck
Dig a duck, dig a gooey duck
Dig a duck a day
You can hear the digger say
As he’s headed for the bay
I gotta dig a duck, gotta dig a duck a day
Cause I get a buck a duck
If I dig a duck a day
So I gotta dig a duck,
Gotta dig a duck a day
They walk across the sand
About a half a mile from land
To dig a gooey duck
You dig him up by hand
But it isn’t much trouble
And you don’t use a shovel
You find a gooey duck
By looking for the bubble
It take a lot of luck
And a certain kind of pluck
To dig around the muck
To get a gooey duck
Cause he doesn’t have a front
And he doesn’t have a back
And he doesn’t know Donald
And he doesn’t go, "Quack!"
Follow this link for sheet music:
http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiGOOEYDUK;ttGOOEYDUK.html
p.s. I played the rice game a while back, too. It's pretty fun.
Oops! Low 40's, not low 50's!
That makes me want to launch into another lengthy complaint on the absurdities of English spelling. I don't mind not knowing the names of shellfish off the northwestern coast of another continent, but if whoever came up with the name had at least had the common courtesy to spell it in a more reasonable fashion, I'd have been much obliged. But then, English spelling is a lost battle.
Great, Peter! Thanks to your link, I know that I've been pronouncing it wrong. Gooey-Duck, not Geo-Duck.
Stephan, I found "gweduck" as an alternate spelling, slightly better for pronunciation. But then how would they tell the tourists from the locals? Like the Bostonians, who can discern by the pronunciation of Quincy. It's Quin-zee, not Quin-see. I never knew till I lived there. I loved the spelling poem. As far as I know, English spelling is so mixed up because English unabashedly steals words from any language it comes in contact with. :)
Note that I've amended the post to include a picture of my great uncle going digging for geoducks. There's a picture somewhere with an actual clam, but I can't find it.
Thanks Stephan - I hadn't seen that before.
Jonathan and I worked on the free rice thing - he got a couple that I didn't know. Jonathan says:
"Oh my collywobbles, oh my funnies".
Yes, it is addictive. I've donated 4,000 grains of rice and I find it interesting how many words I've learned in the past year. I find it amazing that I can guess at the words related to French just from the exposure to it. I also find it amusing that I got "basilisk" and "gamut" one after the other. I know the one from Basel, and the other from medieval music.
I appreciate that the answers aren't meant to trick you like the SAT's. Of course, I might find SAT questions easier now, too, but somehow in this game I find it's more designed to help you learn than to show you how stupid you are.
And the best I've done is 42 and that was at the beginning. I've since hit 40 a number of times, and I know, I really should be in bed, but can I use the excuse that I have to study English because I'm living in a foreign country?
Over 10,000 grains of rice, level 46, and a definite addict.
Congratulations! That's awesome. I'd know many more history dates if there were a similar program for them. :) I like the Saxon/Pimsleur way they combine introducing new words with bringing back old ones for reinforcement.
Welkin! I just got welkin. :)
Where did Jonathan learn "collywobbles"? The only time I've seen that word used is in Miss Read's Thrush Green books (which I highly recommend), where "Dotty's Collywobbles" is a local ailment caused by partaking of foods prepared by a much-beloved but eccentric old lady.
Collywobbles was a question in the free-rice game. (and we got the answer correct)
I finally got around to playing. It's pretty challenging alright! I got clerihew at one point, and welkin too. All the words related to French or German are easy, but I struggle with the Anglo-Celtic stuff.
Two weeks surrounded by foreign tongues must have been good to me -- I achieved Level 52, and I had previously thought it stopped at 50. (I didn't stay there long, but I take my victories where I find them.)
You shouldn't have said that. I stopped as soon as I reached level 50 because I figured there was nothing more left to achieve.
Hehe. In that case, I probably shouldn't have told you about GeoBee either. :)
Today I succeeded at a word because of the Hippo CDs! (Kendo)
I notice that they have changed their algorithm for the better -- now when I miss a word it is likely to come up again soon, reinforcing the correct definition.
Why are all your latest comments signed SursumCorsda?
Thanks, Stephan. Must be my evil twin.
