Five New Words I've Learned this Year

I love learning new words.

1. Qi - This means "energy."  I learned from playing Words with Friends on my iPhone.   I'm often left with the letter "Q" and that's an easy word to make when you don't know what else to do with the Q.

2. Beast - Well, I learned a new meaning for this word from my teenage son.  It means something like "cool."  As in, "that new movie was beast."

3. Ullage - This is a word for the amount that falls short of filling a bottle.  I learned it from Dictionary.com, where I often drop by to check my spelling on certain words.  I'm not the best speller, so it's a crutch for me.  

4. Rubric - My 13-yr-old has had a ton of projects this year in History and English. And each time, the project comes with a sheet called a Rubric, that basically contains the instructions or directions or protocol or guidelines.  It's not a word I'm used to hearing so much. 

5.Karabiner - [kar-uh-bee-ner]  This is something used in mountaineering and tons of other ways.  It's a metal clip with a spring for attaching to something.  I never knew the name, and it's a fun word to say.

Have you learned any new words this year?

Words with Friends - NewToy

As I've mentioned before, I LOVE my iPhone.

It's become a staple in my life that I can't live without!

One of my absolutely favorite apps is called Words with Friends.

I think I have about 10 games going right now with other iPhone users...I play my 13 yr old son, my sister who lives in California, a friend from high school, and a few blogger friends I've never met! 

It's a blast!

I'm a word freak.

I love playing word games.

This game is so much fun.

AND, guess what I just discovered?

The company that developed it , New Toy Inc, also made Age of Empires, 

my 13 yr old son's absolute favorite game ever...

and they made a HALO game, which is another favorite game in our household.

And, I also discovered...they are my neighbors!

They live here in McKinney!

It's fate.

And, if my hunch is correct, 

they work out of one of the coolest looking old warehouses downtown 

that I love to take photos of...

I've just decided to check out their Chess with Friends free app...

because I am an avid fan of chess as well.

Frackets: A New Level of Cheap & Tawdry

While listening to NPR this weekend, I learned a new word:

Frackets.

Want to guess what it means?

WRONG.

Here's the definition from the Urban Dictionary:

A jacket you wear to frats because you don't mind if at the end of the night, it is covered in beer, frat sludge, or other unidentifiable liquids. Also, it is not a big deal if this jacket is lost during or stolen during the course of the night.

 

Person 1: Ah, I made the mistake of bringing my J.Crew pea coat out last night and now its covered in beer!

Person 2: You should have brought your fracket instead!