As you might suspect, in my constant noodling about language and words I often gather more interesting facts than I can use in any given week’s column. So — you guessed it — this week it’s all about the leftovers.
In the news recently is the word “oligarchy,” which was uttered by outgoing President Joe Biden to equate the incoming Trump administration with the type of government that’s been used by some of history’s more brutal regimes. Like many words in politics, the term has its roots in ancient Greek and means “few command.”
After Biden used the word in his address to the nation, “searches for ‘oligarchy definition’ and ‘oligarchy meaning’ spiked,” says the Associated Press, “jumping from a score of 1 to 100 on (Google’s) scale.”
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of oligarchy is “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.” For me, this brought to mind a couple other related Greek-based words: “anocracy,” a form of government in which power is spread among elite groups, and “plutocracy,” rule by the wealthy.
Next let’s look at a pet peeve of mine. I’ve always asserted there is no such thing as “multitasking.” My assertion is based on the commonsense fact that people can think only one thought at a time and that those who claim to be multitasking are simply shifting their attention back and forth between or among different tasks.
To my rescue rides one Linda Stone, a writer and former Microsoft employee who coined the term “continuous partial attention” in 1998. She contends that we don’t ever do anything simultaneously, we are just rapidly task switching. Of course I could be wrong about the whole multitasking thing, but even if I am, at least I now have a definition of what I believe people are doing, which pleases me almost as much as being right.
Speaking of wanting to be right, let’s talk about the Wordle-type games that Mrs. Word Guy and I play every morning. It goes without saying that many of the words we try to solve can be tricky, but have you ever wondered just how tricky? According to Randoh Sallihall at Unscramblerer.com, who analyzed last year’s Google data, the Wordle word we Mainers found trickiest to solve in 2024 was “bevel” (the angle that one surface or line makes with another surface or line when they are not at right angles).
Wordle players in 14 other states found “decal” to be the trickiest word to solve, while those in another 13 states struggled most to come up with “jolly.” As for the other New England states, those in New Hampshire were most stumped by “bugle,” Vermonters had a hard time with “outer,” and those in Massachusetts also struggled with “jolly.” “Decal” made the folks in Connecticut also scratch their heads the most, while “buddy” buffaloed the good people of Rhode Island.
And since we’re on the subject of word games, if you want to win at hangman (and who doesn’t?), one of the best words to use is “jazz” (“zinc” and “quiz” are also good ones to use). Some other good words to use are those that contain no vowels and no repeated letters, such as: “rhythm,” “lynx” and “gypsy,” according to Brainly.com.
The website also notes that longer words with uncommon letters (such as J, Q. X. Y and Z) “tend to be more challenging.” Now go out there and beat some kid at hangman.
Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.” He can be reached at jlwitherell19@gmail.com.
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