additional wordyum

[jinian]

Synonyms and antonyms test, courtesy of mactavish. Only a few totally wild guesses; mostly I knew at least one word in the pair and went by feel if necessary. I got 166, what'd you get?

[Edit: removed test output of what I missed in favor of my comments, since getting all that in email with responses was annoying]

Comments

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

I got 170. Some of them were hard to remember (or I could only remember one), and some I had to try to remember my Latin and Greek roots and reconstruct what the word probably meant.

I'm having fun

[jinian.livejournal.com]

11. "adminicular" not in m-w.com's dictionary
17. I don't think that's what I meant to click
18. root analysis failed
27. I was thinking 3a and feeling like it was a judgement call, should have known better
32. damn, I knew this one. not even a misclick, sloppy thinking.
41. root analysis succeeded, second-guessing failed
52. "agrypnia" not in m-w.com's dictionary
54. thinking of entirely the wrong word
58. have always had trouble with "spendthrift"
60. context-guessing failed (shouldn't have. grr.)
65. root analysis failed
66. root analysis failed
67. thinking of the more common def'n of "gumption" and postulated mind/body as opposites. knew I was reaching.
75. I blame wordfeel
88. no excuse
96. thinking entirely the wrong thing, damn
100. "cunctator" not in m-w.com's dictionary
101. root analysis failed
104. great words! never heard of either of you!
109. never heard "Dives" before
119. no excuse
120. second-guessing failed
121. I remember that now.
146. I did not know that.
152. "apopemptic" not in m-w.com's dictionary
154. second-guessing failed, straining for opposition
159. thinking of entirely the wrong word
165. guessing failed
167. root analysis succeeded, second-guessing failed
169. thinking of wrong part of def'n
174. I did not know that.
184. thinking of entirely the wrong word
190. straining for opposition
199. no excuse

re: "not in m-w.com's dictionary" -- that's not the only place I get words from, it's just that I don't feel so bad when they are actively obscure.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

WE R SMRT

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

I R GUD REEDR LOL

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

one sixty one

I have taken the GRE's twice, you know

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I also scored 166.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

172.

They were either really obvious or just complete blanks, I don't think there was a single one where I knew one word but not the other.

That was kind of fun, but now my hand hurts.

[eub.livejournal.com]

189. That test gives the same kind of fatigue as tongue-twisters or taking two steps at a time down eight flights of stairs.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I got 178. And also bored.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

161!

[eub.livejournal.com]

some fun etymologies from these words:

adminicular: adminiculum a prop. (what's a bare miniculum? was there a bigger version?)

agrypnia: direct from Greek. anyone think of anything with that root?

nimiety: yeah on second thought I suppose the English nim wouldn't take -iety. late L. nimis too much.

contango: "App. an arbitrary or fortuitous formation from continue.", meaning "The percentage which a buyer of stock pays to the seller to postpone transfer to the next or any future settling day." (OED2)

backwardation: "a percentage paid by a seller of stock for the privilege of keeping back or delaying its delivery till the following account or to any other future day agreed upon."

(those two are lovely to generalize. I'm making a note of those.)

atlantes: that'd be Atlas, not Atalanta.

pretermit: praeter in the sense of "beyond", not "more than".

[coyotegirl.livejournal.com]

168. There were a ton of words I didn't know, frankly. I also didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out roots too hard; I've never really learned those, and my brain is full of false cognates.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Hey, me too!

(You need the brain this afternoon?)

[boxofdelights]

182, me. Fun!

[l2g.livejournal.com]

162. But I think at least a third of them were wild guesses, so I don't feel so bad. :-)

I got 166

[roobug.livejournal.com]

But miss-clicked to not answer three more, so who knows? :)