Words! Words! Words!

Seems everybody’s a scientist these days…deciding when masks are required and when they’re not, when schools should open and when they should close, what kind of cough is OK in public. If you’re not sick of it all yet, you must be a world-class epidemiologist who thrives on diseaseiology (I just made that word up). Or maybe a wannabe. Or in-between. Whatever. Take our test today and see if you’re the one Dr. Birx has been looking for all these trying months.

We’re still on the road across the rugged West and beautiful Midwest of the U.S.A. Some fields are corn, some are wheat, some are barley, some are hay, and some are something else. There are cows, horses, sheep, buffalo, and antelope roaming and grazing as far as the eye can see. Every field is an awesome sight. If you’re one who thinks corn, steaks, sausage, and flour magically originate at the grocery store, you’ll be at a disadvantage in this week’s quiz. Try hard anyway, and be sure to look for a local farm stand next time you need some eggs or milk.

We’re literally on the road this week, traveling across this great country called America. As we travel the highways and byways, we are often curious about how geographical names came about. Ever wonder, for example, where the word ‘Appalachia’ came from? We find this on Wikipedia: “While exploring inland along the northern coast of Florida in 1528, the members of the Narváez expedition, including Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, found a Native American village near present-day Tallahassee, Florida, whose name they transcribed as Apalchen or Apalachen. The name was soon altered by the Spanish to Apalachee and used as a name for the tribe and region spreading well inland to the north." And you thought it was French for ‘toothless banjo player.’ Well, try your hand at our non-extensive list of some well-known places, and see where you end up. (Definitions according to Wikipedia.)

We got great emails about last week’s post, all about acronyms and initialisms. Well, we’re going to do it again this week. List some more. Get you guessing. Answering your lifelong wonderments. LTIP (Last time, I promise).

FBI. CDC. AOL. DOJ. Read just about anything today and you’ll find an acronym – or at least an initialism. (An acronym is an abbreviation that’s pronounced as one or more words. An initialism just goes purely by the letters.) Sometimes these abbreviations are well-known. For example, everybody knows what “FBI” stands for, and what the letters “IRS” stand for (do note, though, that when you put ‘the’ and ‘irs’ together, it spells ‘theirs’). But some acronyms and initialisms are taken for granted, while at the same time remain unknown as to what the letters stand for. See how many of these YDK (you do know).

On this day in 1953, Mt. Everest, the highest point on the surface of the earth, was conquered by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal. They were the first people to reach the top of the mountain. On this day in 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state in the United States. On this day in 1917, future U.S. President John F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. And in 2005, Danica Patrick became the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500. She did not win, but finished in fourth place. Let’s see what wordy heights you can climb today and at what speed, asking not what you can do for your vocabulary but what your vocabulary can do for you. (We hope that wasn’t too cheesy.)

On May 22, 1843, the first major wagon train to the Northwest US departed from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail. In England, the Manchester Arena was bombed during an Ariana Grande concert. In 1455, in the opening battle of England’s War of the Roses, the Yorkists defeated King Henry VI’s Lancastrian forces at St. Albans, 20 miles northwest of London. On this day in 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the fictional Sherlock Holmes, was born in Scotland.

On May 15, 1982, “Ebony and Ivory,” sung by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, began its seven-week run at #1 on the pop charts. Without the black keys, the white keys on a piano would pretty much be stuck playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Do Re Mi.” Thank goodness for the ebony keys. On this day in 1942, gasoline rationing began in 17 Eastern states as an attempt to help the American war effort. Rationing eventually spread throughout the country. In 1941, the Allies successfully tested the jet-propelled Gloster-Whittle E 28/39 aircraft. It was the first Allied aircraft using jet propulsion.  In 1756, the Seven Years War, a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, began when England declared war on France.

On May 8, 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrated Victory in Europe Day. In 1884, Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri. Sometime after becoming a haberdasher, he became president of the United States. In 1963, with the release of Dr. No, moviegoers got their first look at the super-spy James Bond, played by Sean Connery. (All other actors fall short of the role. Everyone knows that.) And in 1988, in Seattle, Washington, Stella Nickell was convicted on two counts of murder after she put cyanide in Excedrin capsules in an effort to kill her husband. She killed him and a complete stranger. (This was roughly 12 years after the first “Tylenol murders” in Chicago.) Let’s see if you can spy a victory today in our quiz and thereby rise to heights unheard of. We’ll leave it at that.

On May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicated New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turned on the building’s lights. Hoover’s gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York. On this day in 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month. Let’s see how high and how fast you can go with today’s word quiz. Be sure not to bail out before you finish!