You Can't Play That!

 For a few weeks, now, I've opted to waste my time playing an online word-finding game comparable to Boggle™. The general idea was to keep my vocabulary working for me, even when I was mostly vegging out at the end of hard work in a hot garden.

Well, that was the idea, anyway. It feels more like I'm making my vocabulary work against me. This game app (at the PCH website) doesn't recognize a lot of words that are not only used regularly by me, but can be found in any basic dictionary. I mean, sure, I'll dig out the Oxford Unabridged for some crossword puzzles, but for a 60-second word search, the simpler the better. So imagine my surprise to discover that words like "dirty" and "pawn" were rejected. Indeed, so many simple words weren't cleared for score that, after a week or so, I started writing down as many failures as I could recall, at the end of each game.

So far, aside from the above terribly dirty words I mentioned above, my list includes these: LOIN, BLACK TART, HOE, DAW, WAD, RIANT, GOD, HELL, ERECT, DIKE (yes, the thing that holds back water, not the pejorative for a "masculine lesbian"), OUSEL, AIT, WEED, HAJ, TED, RAJ, GAY, DARN (my socks resent this rejection), BONG, SPLINE, THUG, POT, HOLT, WOMB, CROFT, ZEN, KILL, BOOB, LINCH, COCK, TOOTS, VAIL, CRACK, MAGE, GAM, FANNY, NARD, WYE, GASH, NINNY, QUEER, RAREE, NAKED, PANSY, SHAG, RUMP, HUMP, BARM, EFT, REFT, RACY, SPADE, SLAG, SHAKO, PROD, NONCE, NENE, FAVA, CHAW, PRAT, STOA, GEST, SLUB, TURD (okay it's gross, but it's still a word), BONK, SIMP, CAVY, TWEE, ROTA, COIR, SCUT, SCUD, SNEW, CRABS (but the singular is accepted), KERN, GOLEM


I acknowledge that some of these words might be viewed as somewhat archaic, and a few are – technically – variants of more commonly accepted spellings. Nonetheless… seriously? I can't refer to the apple tart I ate after I used the weed eater to clear a crack in the sidewalk? Or the crabs I chased across the shag rug when they cut their way through a coir-lined container, that then I caught and cooked in the big stock pot?

If I had a proper desk, I'd be beating my head against it right now.