Free Rice

[thewhitelily]

The site freerice.com offers the best method of writers' procrastination that I know.

It's a vocabulary building game that automatically adjusts to your skill level and is thus suitable for any level. And, of course, for every word you get right, they donate ten grains of rice towards the hungry worldwide.

I followed the link there, expecting to get bored with a gimicky charity game very quickly, but... well, let's just say that there's several small families somewhere who won't be going hungry tonight. Those bowls of rice seem to build up all on their own once you're frowning at that next word thinking about latin roots. :)

And me? Well, I now know that a haubergeon is a mail shirt, that palaver is much ado about nothing, and feel pretty darn good at having known what a homunculus was, even if "little man" doesn't quite cover it. And I have a name for a minor character who has been using a placeholder to date. That has to be a comparatively constructive use of time that would have otherwise been spent in entirely useless procrastination.

My vocab level on their scale seems to be around 40, and so does Hubby's - but with our powers combined, we're more like 45. What's yours?

Comments

[thebellman.livejournal.com]

Floats between 42 and 45, depending on quantity and quality of vodka.

Another word for the same thing is hauberk. More or less contemporaneous, variations are regional and cultural. The difference is important though: a crusader from France is probably wearing a haubergeon, one from England a hauberk.

[thewhitelily]

Is vodka good, or is vodka bad? And is good vodka better than bad vodka at being good, or at being bad?

Interesting indeed. It's always fun learning new words - one never knows when the moment for them will arise, and when the moment arises it's always better if the word arises to the surface of one's mind at the same time. *is obviously suffering from bad vodka*

[thebellman.livejournal.com]

bad vodka is very bad. good vodka leads to many words with many syllables, and unlikely toasts. but good vodka also has a deleterious effect on my vocabulary.

[thewhitelily]

Presumably this is why Scrabble is not usually a drinking game.

[thebellman.livejournal.com]

But it could be made into a drinking game. There's an intriguing thought...

[thewhitelily]

It is indeed an intriguing thought. How do you reckon it'd work? I can think of a couple of ways of stacking the drinks - I think the best might be aimed at levelling the playing field by getting the good players trashed. One per successful word, and double/triple for double/triple word score?

Then again, practically any game of skill can be made into an intriguing drinking game, if only to watch how people react as their cognitive abilities momentarily increase and then significantly degrade.

[pete-jones.livejournal.com]

When I wasted some time there (and donated some rice) yesterday, I actually peaked at 47, but rapidly dropped to between 43 and 45...

[thewhitelily]

Wow, that's a pretty impressive peak! My peak was 45 - then I spent most of five bowls of rice trying to get back up there. :)

[rchevalier.livejournal.com]

Yayz, 48. *pokes at all the rice bowls*

(I saw "integral" pop up and I was like, wtf, where's the math? Must have stared for at least a minute trying to figure that one out... XD I'm so stupid sometimes.)

[thewhitelily]

Not 50, my dear? You're slipping! *celebrates at all the riceness*

(*grin* It's all in the context, isn't it? It's so weird having to think of what something means with just absolutely no context.)

[fairyhunter.livejournal.com]

OMG, Brighty linked to this a week ago in the Spam Bard. Freerice = BEST THING EVAR.

My highest was either 47 or 48, can't remember. Usually, I hover around 45, though. I like how there are lots of French words and names of random phyla (platyhelminthes, yay!). Best word I've seen has been 'omphaloskepsis' which meant something weirdly!awesome like 'fear of knees' or something.

And I suggested a word from freerice for one of Mossy's NaNo!characters who had previously been using a placeholder name. Woot!

*goes off to play it some more for a bit*

[fairyhunter.livejournal.com]

'anthropophagus' = 'cannibal'

[/LOL]

Also, apparently when I'm tired I stick closer to 40.

[thewhitelily]

*snortmint*

That's pretty much the funniest word I've ever seen. :P

40's still good, just means you're back here with us oldies, whose vocab has started to decay out of our brain. Okay, so I can't use age as an excuse, but 47-48 is pretty darn awesome!

I should obviously keep up on the spamboard more, because yay, rice!

[lustforlike.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty firmly entrenched at 42, although some of that came from sensible and not-so-sensible-but-reasonably-lucky guessing. At least a point or two of that came entirely from picking up words by reading The Name of the Rose.

[thewhitelily]

Oh, guessing is half the fun. I'm amazed at how well I do guessing - not just on the roots or similar words, but on a general "feeling" - which is probably based on roots and similar words, but not at a conscious level.

[lustforlike.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I guessed well based on the roots - although I found I had to be careful with that, thinking a word has a Latin root when it really has a Germanic one, or just confusing Latin words. I mixed up a couple that way, at least. The guesses that went horribly wrong are the ones where I said to myself: "it can't possibly be that one, so of the remaining ones, I'll pick this..." - and then it tells me that the one I so emphatically ruled out is in fact the correct answer!

Lows of 39, highs 43

[(Anonymous)]

Rather fun, though I gave up at 460 grains of rice. :)

Re: Lows of 39, highs 43

[thewhitelily]

Every grain counts! :) Glad you enjoyed it.