Lexigame Community
General Category => The Daily Quest => Topic started by: Jacki on October 21, 2019, 07:36:10 AM
-
Loved it - had so many different combinations. Got the main word wrong to start - thought it was Trackshoe - not even a word! Missed the rosette cause I didn't think of hotcake. Which my auto correct separates into two words, but I think it's a word.
-
One of the various meanings of tack is 'the equipment used in horse-riding' so my first thought was horsetack ('sorry, not known').
I also saw trackshoe and shockrate (something to do with the Richter scale perhaps?) before realising the word was shortcake.
As for hotcake, it was the last word I played and it was pure desperation.
Neither COD nor Chambers has an entry for hotcake.
Wiktionary defines it as a synonym for pancake. Look for Hotcake on Wikipedia and you are redirected to Pancake,
Chambers does have the phrase 'go / sell like hot cakes' but it is most certainly written as two words.
-
I wouldn't have thought of either hotcake or trackshoe. I did see horsetack but again wouldn't have tried it 'cos I think it would be two words.
-
It's like the other day I played HATH as in "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned", and it was rare. But I would have thought just based on the number of times you hear that phrase alone it should be common. And I'm very familiar with the phrase "selling like hot cakes" but yes I would have thought two words.
-
I'm just guessing here - perhaps Alan will confirm or deny it? - that archaic forms such as hath, hast, doeth, seest etc are classed as uncommon by default.
Maybe the pronouns thou and thee and the possessive pronoun thine are classed as common because, although most of us never use them, they remain in active use, for example among religious groups such as the Society of Friends?
ps 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. ' is so well known it has become proverbial;
in reality it's a modification of a line from a Restoration tragedy.
The original line (from Congreve's 1697 tragedy The Mourning Bride) reads
'Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd
Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.'
The same play, by the way, also gave us another famous quotation:
'Music has charms to soothe a savage breast'
-
I'm just guessing here - perhaps Alan will confirm or deny it? - that archaic forms such as hath, hast, doeth, seest etc are classed as uncommon by default.
Maybe the pronouns thou and thee and the possessive pronoun thine are classed as common because, although most of us never use them, they remain in active use, for example among religious groups such as the Society of Friends?
The closest I think I've come to pronouncing on that issue was in this post (https://theforum.lexigame.com/index.php/topic,3698.msg56687.html#msg56687) last year:
There are a few archaic words we treat as common because people are very likely to be familiar with them. Examples are thee and thine, which are regularly encountered in old books and historical fiction and movies.
You may recall, MK, that the proposal (https://theforum.lexigame.com/index.php/topic,4008.msg61470.html#msg61470) you made earlier this year to reclassify prithee from common to rare sparked some lively discussion. That suggestion remains open.
-
Hotcake may be another cultural divide. Although our usual menu word is pancakes, I have seen hotcakes often enough, even more, I think, if I'm reading a book set in the south or west.
-
Hotcake may be another cultural divide. Although our usual menu word is pancakes, I have seen hotcakes often enough, even more, I think, if I'm reading a book set in the south or west.
Having grown up in the U.S. South, I think of hotcake as a southern usage, pancake as a general usage, flapjack and griddlecake / griddle cake as more isolated and sporadic.