Welcome to the Guess My Word blog. This is a place to discuss the words of the day chosen by Joon and Mike. This paragraph is here mostly as spoiler space. Here are today's words:
On the way to Mike's word today I tried PYRUVIC, which was rejected as a word. On other days I've tried MURIATIC, which was also turned down.
Is the Scrabble Player's Dictionary biased against chemical words? I'm surprised at those omissions, mostly because the words themselves aren't particularly arcane. If you go to the hardware store you can buy muriatic acid over the counter, and pyruvic acid pops up all over the place in discussions of the human diet and digestive process.
same thing i said to you last time: pyruvic acid is an entry in my dictionary. it's not guessable in GMW because it's two words. pyruvic by itself is not a dictionary entry. pyruvate is, and you can guess it if you want.
MURIATIC certainly shows up in a normal life scenario-- so I am surprised that it is rejected, as are more than a few words I encountered in our daughter's medical odyssey (through heart surgeries, etc.) since I KNOW they are very real words to many new parents. If you want to include obscure mathematical, physical, chemical, etc., terms, then let's include the very real terms that many of us very real parents know as well as we know our ABC's.
and what does "muriatic" mean if not in the context of the two-word phrase "muriatic acid"? i think the dictionary is pretty well justified in giving a definition for the latter but not the former. it's almost like expecting "helter" to have its own dictionary entry, but it just doesn't mean anything without "skelter". (i say almost because "acid" obviously means something by itself, which "skelter" does not. but i don't think "muriatic" really does, and i've certainly never heard it without "acid".)
Mu`ri`at´ic a. 1. (Chem.) Of, pertaining to, or obtained from, sea salt, or from chlorine, one of the constituents of sea salt; hydrochloric. Muriatic acid hydrochloric acid, HCl; - formerly called also marine acid, and spirit of salt. See hydrochloric, and the Note under Muriate.
i did the same search. the top hit was from webster's 1913. muriatic (as a standalone word) isn't in MW11C or the NOAD, which is fairly telling. a google search for "muriatic -acid" reveals no hits that i could find where the word is actually used in context. it's basically some usernames, song titles, scrabble solvers, etc. nobody in the first several pages of hits is using muriatic to mean of or pertaining to sea salt or chlorine.
On the way to Mike's word today I tried PYRUVIC, which was rejected as a word. On other days I've tried MURIATIC, which was also turned down.
ReplyDeleteIs the Scrabble Player's Dictionary biased against chemical words? I'm surprised at those omissions, mostly because the words themselves aren't particularly arcane. If you go to the hardware store you can buy muriatic acid over the counter, and pyruvic acid pops up all over the place in discussions of the human diet and digestive process.
same thing i said to you last time: pyruvic acid is an entry in my dictionary. it's not guessable in GMW because it's two words. pyruvic by itself is not a dictionary entry. pyruvate is, and you can guess it if you want.
DeleteMURIATIC certainly shows up in a normal life scenario-- so I am surprised that it is rejected, as are more than a few words I encountered in our daughter's medical odyssey (through heart surgeries, etc.) since I KNOW they are very real words to many new parents.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to include obscure mathematical, physical, chemical, etc., terms, then let's include the very real terms that many of us very real parents know as well as we know our ABC's.
and what does "muriatic" mean if not in the context of the two-word phrase "muriatic acid"? i think the dictionary is pretty well justified in giving a definition for the latter but not the former. it's almost like expecting "helter" to have its own dictionary entry, but it just doesn't mean anything without "skelter". (i say almost because "acid" obviously means something by itself, which "skelter" does not. but i don't think "muriatic" really does, and i've certainly never heard it without "acid".)
DeleteFrom one of the many online dictionaries:
ReplyDeleteMu`ri`at´ic
a. 1. (Chem.) Of, pertaining to, or obtained from, sea salt, or from chlorine, one of the constituents of sea salt; hydrochloric.
Muriatic acid
hydrochloric acid, HCl; - formerly called also marine acid, and spirit of salt. See hydrochloric, and the Note under Muriate.
i did the same search. the top hit was from webster's 1913. muriatic (as a standalone word) isn't in MW11C or the NOAD, which is fairly telling. a google search for "muriatic -acid" reveals no hits that i could find where the word is actually used in context. it's basically some usernames, song titles, scrabble solvers, etc. nobody in the first several pages of hits is using muriatic to mean of or pertaining to sea salt or chlorine.
Delete