Your quiz results

Your score is: 17 points out of a possible 25
That is 68 % -- Fair

 

{ Thank goodness for spell check as you can see I need it.}

My typing does not always show it

 

Your quiz results

Your score is: 19 points out of a possible 25
That is 76 % -- Good!

Heck, I got them all correct without even checking.  Who can argue with "don't know"?

Your quiz results

Your score is: 23 points out of a possible 25
That is 92 % -- Excellent

Mind you, they are not entirely correct.  Supercede is as correct as supersede according to the OED.

Is that right, John? The new OED or the 1931 edition?

 

I keep getting hung up on judgement and acknowledgement. Didn't they used to be spelled that way? And the "e" makes the "g" soft.

 

I have to tell you, though, that "supercede" grates on my nerves.

 

Pikes, you bloody genius! Which two did you miss?

Talking of the OED, has everyone read Simon Winchester's "The Professor and the Madman"? It's about the making of the original OED, and it's absorbing!

 

The latest book about words that I've read is "Night Train to Lisbon," by Mercier (or somebody like that). It's about a professor of Latin and Greek who loses his mind and walks off the job and goes to Lisbon to learn about the life of a dead doctor, whose book he has read. I love it when people do things like that, don't you? One of the exciting passages in the book is about the professor not being able to remember a Greek word that occurs only once in Homer. He can't remember it and he can't find it where he thought it was in the Odyssey. It drives him crazy.

Your score is: 24 points out of a possible 25
That is 96 % -- Excellent!

 

 

 

 

We intercede, accede,  precede, proceed, succeed - all from the Latin verb cedere - to go.  Why is supercede not to follow its root?  Because its immediate root is the Latin supersedere - to sit above and has nothing to do with cedere - to go; so supersede  is correct but the OED has both.  I'm not using my old OED at the moment as its binding has collapsed, so I'm relying on my 1999 edition.

OED has judgement as correct with judgment as a varient; also acknowledgement as correct with acknowledgment as 'chiefly US'.  Surely you are right, Belle, as to the 'e' being essential to soften the 'g'?

 

The BBC did The Professor and the Madman as a TV series a few years ago.  Fascinating!

 

I expect you're right, Joe.

 

I wish I had seen that, John. I wonder if Blockbuster has it.

 

I liked that book so much I started calling my office the Scriptorium (or Scrippy for short).

So that accounts for your graceful style, Charley! (I was wondering what did.)