Saturday, March 19, 2016

A-Z Challenge 2016



The other day I used my trusty old Oxford English Dictionary as a stepping stool when I needed to reach something on my top bookshelf. It got me thinking. How many of the seven inches of words between those tired old covers do I actually use?.

Then one thought led to another. There are hundreds, thousands even of words which have become neglected, forgotten or deleted only to be replaced with newbies like selfie, bouncebackability, gaydar and screenager. Horrid aren't they?

So I decided that my theme for this year's A-Z Challenge would be very short stories written around some of the old words we no longer use. For example, my first contribution will feature the verb absquatulate; don’t worry, I will provide a definition at the head of each post!

I am going to have fun!

20 comments:

  1. Looking forward to learning/relearning lots of words!

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  2. This will be fantastic! I can hardly wait.

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  3. Brilliant theme. As I writer I'm sure I've used every word I know a million times or more and forgotten many along the way. See you soon!

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  4. I remember your amazing short stories from last year! Looking forward to learn some new words and read great stories from you this April, Keith :)

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  5. Intrigued already! Look forward to reading along.

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  6. Wow! This is going to be a great vocabulary-building exercise for us! Good to connect with you again, Keith. See you around next month! All the best!

    - Chicky Kadambari @ www.mysteriouskaddu.com
       Twitter | Facebook | Google+

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  7. Ooooh! I love wordplay and your theme sounds like a lot of fun! Good luck!

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  8. Your theme reminds me of the Call My Bluff quiz show :) Looking forward to extending my vocabulary.

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  9. I love learning about old words. Sounds like a great theme.

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  10. I'm such a word nerd. This sounds monsterful! http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/27-delightful-obsolete-words-its-high-time-we-revived#.vyPxRboGk

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  11. Love it!! Bring back the fabulous old words! They have so much more character than some of the current neologisms!

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  12. Ooh sounds like fun! I look forward to reading your stories.

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  13. Oh, that's a great theme. I love obscure words.

    ~Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
    Story Dam
    Patricia Lynne, Indie Author

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  14. Awesome theme! I'm looking forward to being 28-obscure-words smarter by the end of this month.

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  15. It is amazing how many words there are out there and I am sure in our lifetime we just use a fraction of them. I've been doing medical transcription for over 35 years and it seems like daily I run into a word I've never heard of before in the medical field. Sounds like a great theme and a learning theme for us as we'll learn the definitions of 26 new words during the month of April :)

    betty

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  16. I'm so happy to have chanced upon your blog. I love your A-Z idea. Will be checking in during April. Good luck! :)

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  17. Here from the theme reveal and really liked your idea! Best of luck! Will be back in April.

    Nilanjana.
    Ninja Minion, A-Z 2016
    Madly-in-Verse

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  18. Brilliant theme! I look forward to it!
    @ScarlettBraden from
    Chica In Cuenca

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