Words

 I live alone, but I do like to make my meals social. So. if

I am not in wild pursuit of anything, I will turn on Wordscramble EU

with my dinner. Scrabble Level 3. I loose a lot, but sometimes, I win. It

has to do with how tough-minded I am prepared to be, and not make

any moves that provide opportunities for the computer.

 C has a huge vocabulary, not to mention it cheats. Yes,  I am treated to all 

manner of living creatures, metallic ions, Maori expressions, South African slang.

It's endless. But - cerise sur le gâteau - at level 3, C takes huge liberties

with accepted spellings, substituting y for i, dropping double consonnants to 1, 

adding a_ to the beginnings of words. Just this morning, C turned raise to

araise, totally unfindable on a conventional dictionnary, but synonymous

with arise within the game. I try anything of the sort and it is refused. I should

keep a list of all of C's little tricks...

On the plus side, I do learn from the exercise. Last year's top discovery was the verb

'roil'. It means to make murky!  Before I knew it, there it was in a Guardian humoristic piece 

about the English Conservative Party, roiling the debate!! This year, I have kept a few

in mind:

Word 1: kamala. C sprung this on me in the middle of the American election. It is an

actual noun. From Wikipedia:

Kamala is a Sanskrit word meaning 'lotus'. It is used as a feminine given name in Indian culture, predominantly by Hindu families, as it is one of the names of the goddess Lakshmi, who appears from the centre of a lotus.

Lakshmi is the goddess of prosperity.

Word 2:qanat. From Wikipedia:

A qanāt (Persian: قَنَات) or kārīz (کَارِیز) is a water supply system that was developed in ancient Iran for the purpose of transporting usable water to the surface from an aquifer or a well through an underground aqueduct. Originating approximately 3,000 years ago, its function is essentially the same across the Middle East and North Africa, but it is known by a variety of regional names beyond today's Iran, including: kārēz in Afghanistan and Pakistan; foggāra in Algeria; khettāra in Morocco; falaj in Oman and the United Arab Emirates; and ʿuyūn in Saudi Arabia. In addition to those in Iran, the largest extant and functional qanats are located in Afghanistan, Algeria, China (i.e., the Turpan water system), Oman, and Pakistan.

                                                                                       

Word 3: fundi. A few days ago. There is a schism between the two main currents of the Greens in 

German Politics since the 1980s. It runs betweenThe fundi (or fundamentalists) who see being a 

Green as involving a life choice with little room for compromise and the Realos (realists), who stand 

for election and are ready to compromist to advance various environmental causes...