We made the holiday butter cookies last night. For the most part, we stuck to the standard cookie cutter shapes, but near the end, when the dough was almost gone, we decided to get creative and make cookies in the shapes of each of our first initials. I made an A for Alden. Robbi must not have considered it up to snuff because she then made an A for Alden.
Can you guess who made which?
Don’t worry. It’s not a trick question. I made the awful, misshapen one, and Robbi made the well-spoken, kind, and elegant one you want to take home to meet your mother.
Because it is Wednesday and because you seem to be the sort of people who enjoy words and appreciate distractions in the workplace, I offer you a photo of our last tray of cookies as the prompt for a bit of a contest.
Using the letters here represented, how many words can you make in one minute? Submit your answers in a comment, and whoever comes up with the most wins a copy of Ten Thousand Stories.
Suggestion: write your answers on a piece of paper or in a Word document and then copy them into the comment field to avoid inadvertently “borrowing” the hard work of the commenter before you.
Note: Robbi is ineligible for this contest, as is our friend Sam, whose supernatural skill at Wordulous would make his participation totally unfair to the rest of you.
Note: AKMBRAD is not a word, even though it should be.
all I could do in one minute is
brad
drama
bra
karma
mark
dram
I really think AKMBRAD should be a word too.
Nice cookies!
I’m sure there are more, but here’s what I got:
ka
ma
am
baa
bad
mad
ram
arm
brad
bard
drama
rad
bark
mark
ark
dark
mar
bar
dam
mad
mar
mark
bam
bad
bar
bark
brad
dram
drab
dam
dark
rad
ram
am
ab
ad
drama
Well done, Jed. I already see I missed “arm” and “ark”, and….
Yum. I happen to like Xmas cookies before they’re frosted. But I have to put them aside before my frosting freaks get a hold of them.
mark
bar
bard
bark
drab
mad
bam
am
dark
dram
arm
dam
ram
ad
bar
ark
Ugh I missed drama. Among others I’m sure but that one hurts.
arm
bad
mad
rad
mark
mar
am
dark
drab
ark
bard
bark
brad
‘mbark
I think Andy should get a bonus point for ‘mbark.
clearly I am way mad and should be shipped off in some dark, drab ark. i ain’t no bard, but at least i got bra.
‘mbark wins the day!
Clearly, I will not be the winner, but here are the words I came up with:
bard
brad
bad
arm
bar
rad
dam
mad
dram
ram
ark
bark
mark
Arab
bard
drab
dram
drama
karma
mama
ram
ma’am
bark
mark
dark
bar
dam
bam
bad
dab
Adam
mad
rad
Brad
ad
am
ab
Ra
Mab
mar
baa
A.K.A.
Crap. I kind of missed that one minute part.
Hey, I’m famous! My wife was quite proud when she read the post…
Rad
Dark
Ark
Bark
Mark
Mar
Ram
Dab
Bad
Bam
Mad
Ad
Dam
Did the round circle count as an ‘o’? If so, you can add
Dork
Oak
Scrabble doesn’t allow proper nouns, but you guys didn’t say anything about it, so I found
Dakar
Finally, you also didn’t really specify whether we were restricted to English.
so I found
Baka
One minute goes by fast!
What fun to be able to play this game again (and, especially, to find I am still good at it)! I played it in the car for countless hours with one or the other of my parents while the other parent drove – but never with a short time limit (that added feature made it really difficult this time, and led to mind-numbness afterwards). The game was also a beloved feature in the children’s magazines at doctors’ and dentists’ offices (along with the “What’s wrong with this picture?” feature), and we always brought along pencils and pieces of scrap paper so that we could play it without marking up the magazines. (To recreate the tradition, I played this morning on the back of an envelope from the recycling bag.)
You have so much to look forward to with your babies on long trips: word games, NPR on the radio, recorded books, old-fashioned reading aloud (wait ‘til they read to you!), memory games, drawing games, singing, and (later) mapping. Enjoy every moment of it.
a a b d k m r
a
ab
ad
am
arm
Dara
Kara
ma ← maybe should be “Ma” but I think it is a common noun in slang or dialect
mark
bark
dark
dam
dram
drama
darma
karma
ram
bam
Ra
rad
mad
bad
brad
mar
bar
Akbar
The proper names probably should not be allowed, but they were fun, especially when “Akbar” hit me right at the end – I had to look it up later to see if it could be spelled without an “h”. (I hear myself, in a whiney, confrontational, hypercompetitive, obnoxious upper elementary/junior high school voice saying, “But you didn’t say we couldn’t use proper names! You have to say it before we start, or they’re legal!” My poor parents.) I also don’t know about the slang; “ab” is so 80s and “rad” so early 60s that I left them in for the pleasure of the words.
After the minute was over, I saw
Mab
Mara
bra
bard
ram
Adam
darma
arb ⇐ slang for arbitrageur
drab
dab
da ← slang or dialect for “Dad” or “dad”
barm
maar
Looking out the window, we have snow! I’m sure you and your little ones do, too. Enjoy every bit of it – I hope you have enough for a snow sculpture. My “baby” organized a huge all-campus Outing Club snowball fight in front of the Williams snack bar last night. Obnoxious upper elementary/junior high school moments aside, it just keeps getting better and better.
Did anybody say Barak?
Virginia – you’re kidding, right, about word games and NPR in the car? We were thinking more like heavy sedatives and personal DVD players.
And yes! We DO have snow. It’s actually sticking – pictures to come –
And you seriously have to try out Wordulous. I have had to give it up for fear of permanent addiction. It’s the only reason I ever spent any time on Facebook or my iPod Touch.
“Barak” is very, very good. Kudos.
The way we always played this in a group was to come up with a master list in the end and then marvel at how many words we were and how brilliant we were. Cheap esteem builder…. I’ll try to remember to come back and do that. “Did anyone get [X word]” is one of my favorite questions: when the game shifts from competitive to collaborative.
Robbi – I need to stay away from things like Wordulous. I’ll never get to play in the snow if I succumb to that.
Enjoy that snow. It is sticking here, too.
You know, Robbi, many kids would probably see no distinction between ‘NPR’ and ‘heavy sedatives’.
We’ve got snow over this side of the Bay, too, and, surprise of all surprises, Montgomery County schools didn’t close! Hope it keeps falling…
bra
brad
bam
bar
dam
mar
dram
ram
bard
mad
dab