This is the only thing I’m good at–vocabulary. I’ve never held a particularly good paying job. I took Latin in high school and college, plus speak a little Spanish and a tiny bit of French which really helps.

The player who knows Latin and Greek is right: if you know some rudiments like “a-” or “an-” as a prefix means “not,” and suffix “-ology” means “study of,” you can figure out a lot.

Remaining puzzlers are words that have not been current outside remote parts of the world or since the 17th century.

Lotta French, too.
Surprising quantity of Yiddish.

I’d be pleased if Free Rice did something to boost the written vocabulary of most e-mail correspondents, the spoken vocabulary of most businesspeople, and the expletive vocabulary of the teenagers lounging permanently downtown.

Welcome Jeffrey — I actually thought I’d replied to this ages ago, but see I did not. Anyway, I think those are such good tips. Thank you. And I enjoyed your blog very much! How nice to find a good writer on such a great subject.

Cole, It is indeed addicting. And the rice keeps piling up, even if there is a small slippage from your top score.

Hey Abi — What a fabulous idea. And yes, they are a very clever lot, aren’t they?

Mary, that’s very good! You need to head over to Aphra’s non-family blog and give her your carefully compiled list also.

Dear Aphra — I just realized that whatever answer I made to your most generous offer disappeared somewhere. But yes, I will email you when, well, there is enough meat in that sandwich to wrap it up and send it your way.

HMH — I see this “how many words are there for the sword and the sheath” is going to become as addicting as Free Rice. I am way beyond 37 at this point.

Doug — I loved checking your blog out. In addition to being such a fine writer, it looks like you’re having ‘way too much fun over there.

thing is, i have reached 50 without any cheating, but by using the occasional educated guess. of course, there is parsing word roots and all that. and the fact that many of the words are downright foreign words one either knows or doesn’t. but there are also patterns to the questions. such as, if there is a bizarre word you never heard of, and your choices are three conceptual ideas, and one concrete object or animal, choose the concrete object or animal. also, if there are three short answers and one choice that takes many words to describe, choose that one. there are other tips like this. not cheating, since guessing is a valid part of multiple choice. but that’s how i get to 50. it rocks at 50.

Bloglily – mine is not a family blog. If you’d like to post your words for wongers there whizz me an email and I’ll set you up as a user. I *like* words for wongers. They make me laugh.

Merry Christmas.

Aphra.