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Contests
- Our current
contest is to list the five longest English words, found in the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary, that are composed entirely of Roman numerals.
Just e-mail your answer to info@proofreadnow.com,
with all five words, and you win!
- Several winners
came forward in our last contest, so hats off to them. Here's what
we asked about: The i 's have it. The vowel i is repeated
more frequently in single words than any other letter, such as in
the four-i 'd civilizing, infinitive, and initiation;
the five-i 'd initializing, invincibility, and invisibility;
and the six-i 'd indivisibility.
The contest was to be the first to tell us the
following:
- A word with five a 's : abracadabra
- A word with four c 's : concupiscence
- A word with three y 's : syzygy
- A word with four z 's : pizzazz or razzmatazz
- A word with four f 's : riffraff
- A word with two q 's : quinquennial
- A word with four t 's : statuette or tattletale
- A word with four l 's : hillbilly or syllabically
(Simple rules: Must be English words, found in
the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary , cannot be hyphenated,
and cannot be proper nouns.)
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Last time our
contest was looking for a very special word. After all, proofreading
is all about making sure the words you use are just right, right?
Kathryn B. of Englewood, Colorado, was the first to tell us the
word we were looking for, and we sent her a deluxe, all-cotton ProofreadNOW
designer t-shirt! This contest had two questions.
What kind of
word does the following poem exhibit?
Ladies and gentlemen!
Toward me bow.
Please watch the show; don't draw the bow.
Please don't try to start a row.
Sit peacefully, all in a row.
Don't squeal like a big, fat sow.
Do not the seeds of discord sow.
The answer
was "They are heteronyms."
Now, given that
you knew the word we are looking for, you will know the answer to
this question: Why do we know so little about salivary glands?
Note: This is
a trick question, based on the concept of the poem. It's kind of
fun, too! The answer was, "Because they are secretive!"
And just so
you know, our contests are taken from The Word Circus by
Richard Lederer.
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Our first contest
dealt with perhaps one of the most famous grammar errors in the
American English language. Hats off to Martha Simpson, of the U.S.
Treasury, for finding this one!
Here it was:
"We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The error was
in Mr. Jefferson's choice of the non-word 'UNalienable' which should
have been 'INalienable'!!!
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