Lexigame Community
General Category => Word Games => Topic started by: mkenuk on September 30, 2019, 10:21:50 AM
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re yesterday's politburo game.
I did see the word - eventually, but many didn't.
It can't have happened very often in the past that the seed-word is the common word with the fewest hits - well under half of those taking part found it. (240 from 581)
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I didn't get it Mike :( I've obviously heard of the word but before I looked at the solution I'm not sure that I could have spelt it correctly if push came to shove
Pen
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Is this a generational divide? Those of us who remember the Cold War vs. younger folks?
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I think you might well be right there Birdy
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It jumped out at me right away.
But then I remember classroom drills — tucking head down, covered by folded hands, beneath the student desk (during Cuban Missile Crisis — lived about 100 miles from Havana).
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It can't have happened very often in the past that the seed-word is the common word with the fewest hits
It's also quite unusual these days to have a nine-letter word that we haven't seen before. But that's the case for politburo - it hasn't previously been in a daily puzzle, though it has been in a few random and custom-made puzzles. That's probably why nobody has queried it previously.
This graph, from the Corpus of Historical American Usage, COHA, shows the rise and fall of the word's usage:
(https://theforum.lexigame.com/politburo.png)
I think it's fair to say that it's no longer a common word, so it will be treated as rare in future, and won't be used as a seed word again.
It was occasionally written as politbureau in English texts, but it was usually politburo, from the Russian politbyuro, from polit(icheskoe) byuro "political bureau". The Russians seemed to go in for this type of abbreviation, formed from fragments of the key words: Comintern, Komsomol, Comecon. It seems the British do this sometimes too: Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education. And then there's Brexit.
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And then there's Brexit.
Hiss! Boo!
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That's Brexit that a referendum of the British people voted in favour of, but a belligerent establishment wants to derail. So much for democracy!
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I'm shocked this will be a rare word when palmier and shriven are common.
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That's Brexit that a referendum of the British people voted in favour of, but a belligerent establishment wants to derail. So much for democracy!
Think it's fair to say that democracy is now non-existent. None of the MP's come out of this in a good light. Even the Speaker, who is meant to be impartial, is doing his best to help derail it. It just drags on & on.
I'm fed up to my back teeth with it.
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Even the Speaker, who is meant to be impartial, is doing his best to help derail it.
I don't agree with you on that, Pen. He's a remainer, but I think he's a champion of the back-benchers and someone who is determined not to let Johnson inflict the worst possible Brexit on us. No one but the most mentally deranged or the most obscenely rich (some of Johnson's backers) would wish for that. He does love the sound of his own voice though!
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Tom, my understanding is that was a referendum where people were not aware of all the information that is now better understood. Moreover, 3 years have passed. 3 years of young voters, who we are told are mainly in favour of staying are now eligible to vote. 3 years where older people, who we are told were mainly in favour of exiting, are now dead. It seems to me if you are talking about democracy, it should be on the basis of a new referendum of a better informed current population.
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That's true, Jack. The leave campaign was based on lies and no mention was ever made of the fact that any Brexit would leave us worse off, or of the seemingly insoluble problem of the Irish border and the possibility of re-awakening the Troubles in Northern Ireland.Those leavers who say that putting it back to the people would be anti-democratic are actually being anti-democratic themselves. If a vote that was held more than three years ago is the only vote that should be held, then the logical follow-up to that would be that we should never hold another general election because the people have spoken and must not be allowed to change their minds. One of Johnson's richest backers has bet £300 million on a disastrous Brexit (he already made £200 million out of the plunge in the value of the pound after the referendum) so Johnson's main priority is to ensure that he and his ilk are rewarded. In my opinion.
The government's own papers have indicated that there could be a shortage of essential medicines in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The husband of a friend of mine, who is dependent on cancer-treatment drugs, is worried sick, as if having cancer isn't enough to be worried about. Even if he's worrying about nothing it's disgraceful that anyone should even have such fears. But I guess a few people popping their clogs would be acceptable collateral damage to some - those who won't be affected by a shortage of course.
And as for Boris Johnson... don't even get me started!
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Just precisely why it is so important to Johnson that UK leaves the EU at Hallowe'en 'with or without a trade deal' is not yet altogether clear, but I'd be willing to bet that there is an enormous amount of money at stake for him and his cronies.
My guess is that he has cooked up some trade deal with his best buddy DT, the 'madman across the water', which cannot come into effect till UK is out of the EU.
Interesting too that the tory popular press - the 'Daily Heil', the 'Daily Excess' and the 'Torygraph' (I don't count the 'Sun' as a newspaper) have spent the last few days trying to convince their readership that Parliament is the enemy of 'the people' . Johnson has already said that 'people against Parliament' will form the basis of his campaign in the forthcoming election.
'British Constitution for Beginners', Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 1, Line 1
(Britain does have a constitution, by the way. It's just not written down)
Parliament is supreme.
Parliament has been supreme since the end of the Civil War (Worcester, September 1651)
Not the monarch, not the government, not the Prime Minister and most certainly not something called the 'will of the people'.
Parliament.
Theresa May thought she was above Parliament - she would trigger Article 50 and start the process of taking Britain out of the EU when she decided to, without consulting Parliament.
She was given a lesson in British Constitution by those 'enemies of the people' - the High Court Law Lords.
Now the muppet Johnson seeks to set himself above Parliament.
There can only be one possible outcome - in the end he will lose.
Let's just hope and pray that by the time that happens not too much damage has occurred.
A prediction - should UK leave the EU at 11,00 pm on the 31st October, - and, even now, I'm still quite optimistic that common sense will prevail - then the following day the word Breentry will enter the language.
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Tom, my understanding is that was a referendum where people were not aware of all the information that is now better understood.
Indeed. The top three searches on Google from the UK the day after the referendum were
- What does it mean to leave the EU
- What is the EU
- What countries are in the EU
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Sadly some people (on both sides) had no idea what they were voting for:
A leaver saying we needed to get out of the EU in order to keep the Indians and Pakistanis out.
A woman who, having heard it said that our money would be better off remaining in the UK, voted to remain.
A leaver who said we needed to get out because we're not part of Europe - that's why we're surrounded by sea.
A Facebook post from someone who said "So called educated moron's (sic) should not be aloud (sic) to vote".
It beggars belief.
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Sadly some people (on both sides) had no idea what they were voting for:
A Facebook post from someone who said "So called educated moron's (sic) should not be aloud (sic) to vote".
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:D
A definite 'Sun' reader there!