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Thread: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    This is a challenge to FPGeeks!

    And, this being a challenge (and a battle of words), it means there will be a champion, and there will be a special gift from me to the champion!

    (a special thank you to Dannzeman, for creating this forum after I asked where I may post this thread)

    This is a two-part challenge. The first part will not win favor with any gifts, but it will set up part two where the real challenge will take place and the champion will be had. Even if you decide not to enter this challenge for the gift, please help set up those who do with your input by participating in part one. Part two will be posted for the actual challenge entries after part one has been completed on January 24, 2014, and run through February 17, 2014, Presidents’ Day.

    First, though, I’m going to start by telling you about my gift for the champion of the challenge. This way, if you don’t like the gift from winning the challenge, you can run off now, and skip the following narrative and the truly obligatory uglies (disclaimers, fine print, yada yada) if you don’t want to participate.

    I will put all the uglies in a separate thread and come back and link it HERE, so as not to clutter up the challenge posting – but don’t skim or skip reading all of it, there is a silver lining hidden in the ugly cloud.


    MY GIFT TO THE CHAMPION:

    The choice of any (one) production model Edison Pen with stock steel nib, and a $101 USD gift certificate from the Goulet Pen Company. The combined value of the Edison Pen and Goulet Pen Company gift certificate is $250 USD.

    Here are pictures of the Edison Pen production pen line, posted with permission of the Goulet Pen Company (and does include the Edison Nouveau Premiere, non-limited edition, also by permission):

    Beaumont, Collier


    Herald, Hudson


    Pearlette, Premiere



    CHALLENGE - PART ONE

    A long time ago in a thread far, far away…

    In 2008, I fell in love with a thread called “Difficult Words” in another forum. Folks talked about the words which gave them the most difficulty, headaches, and nightmares when trying to write them in cursive. After a half a dozen posts or so, someone else took a little creative initiative and took the words already listed and put them together into a practice sentence. The practice sentence grew with as more words were posted, and it eventually became a one-sentence mini story. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it ended up being the practice sentence to beat all that included words with lots of z’s, x’s, q’s, double letters, multiple descenders and ascenders, words so long they hurt to write, and various combinations thereof. I have a copy of that sentence saved so I can practice with it still. However, I’m ready for a new practice sentence, and I want you to help me get it.

    For part one, please help to set up a new practice sentence. From now to Friday, January 24, 2014, please start listing all the words and/or letter combinations you absolutely hate to write (um, let’s avoid the naughty words, though). All the words must be real words. Please let us know why the words or letter combinations you put up give you nightmares to write. If it is a really strange word, also add a brief definition.

    In addition, if you can come up with one, please include a word containing both the letters B and G - but avoiding the suffix “ing” - along with your difficult word. A B/G word is not a requirement, but some added zing is always welcome.

    For inspiration, here is just the first part of that long ago practice sentence, and some of the words or letter combinations behind it:

    “Disturbed by his colleagues' lack of enthusiasm, again and again the Egyptian astrophysicist visiting the observatory in Mississippi analyzed the multi-part transcription of telecommunications from the Galileo probe for the minimum of errors and maximum of syzygy,”

    capital letter D - difficult to write consistently
    double letters - m’s and n’s and r’s especially bad
    telecommunication – takes a long time to write right
    Mississippi – multiple sets of double letters that can make the eyes cross
    minimum – m’s, n’s, i’s and u’s kind of run together and tend to morph into something else
    Egypt - those annoying descenders
    syzygy – see Egypt, and throw in a z, too (real word, something about alignment of the stars)
    Galileo - upward loops and strokes in a row that want to all become loopy pen trials
    maximum - more m’s and i’s and u’s and they had to throw in an x for good measure
    again – because I seem to have a strikeout every time I write the word, and it isn’t such a hard word, is it?

    rutabaga – B/G word
    beggar – B/G word, with double letters, and double descenders

    So, there is the start of a list of difficult words, and the start of the challenge. Please champion my cause and tell me, what are all the words which are difficult for you to write? You are not limited to single posts, the more the merrier!

    Kimy


    edits: For emphasis and spelling only, content has not been altered!
    Last edited by kia; January 17th, 2014 at 10:06 PM.

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    subramaniyam (January 17th, 2014)

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1



    to be on top of the uglies

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    Senior Member kaisnowbird's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Okay, here is a list of words I don't like to write, especially without a spell check. It took me nearly an hour to think of them and I will not reveal how long it took for me to get the right spelling (fingers-crossed). Given US English uses more Z's, I stick with US spelling.

    You may notice that I have neglected words begin with letter X. Well, except Xmas and Xavier, I don't enjoy writing any of those words. Luckily, I hardly ever have to write any of those ugly words.

    Four *B*G* words included.

    A
    accumulative
    acquiesce
    aficionado
    amalgamate
    asbestos
    B
    benign (BG)
    Bologna (BG)
    bourgeois/bourgeoisie (BG)
    C
    chauvinism
    collaboration
    corroboration
    continuum
    conundrum
    curmudgeon
    curriculum
    Czechoslovakia
    D
    dachshund
    derriere
    E
    entrepreneur
    exaggerated
    extraordinary
    F
    fuchsia
    G
    guerrilla
    H
    hemorrhage
    hierarchy
    hors d'oeuvre
    I
    idiosyncrasy
    illegitimate
    indiscriminate
    interference
    J
    jewellry
    K
    knowledgeable
    L
    labyrinth
    lieutenant
    M
    maneuver
    mannequin
    mayonnaise
    miscellaneous
    mnemonic
    N
    necessarily
    nutritious
    O
    omniscience
    P
    paraphernalia
    pharmaceutical
    plagiarize
    pronunciation
    Q
    quadruple
    questionnaire
    R
    reconnaissance
    rhapsody
    ridiculous
    S
    sacrilegious
    schizophrenic
    silhouette
    subterfuge (BG)
    T
    thirtieth
    U
    uninhibited
    V
    vinaigrette
    W
    wherever
    Y
    yacht
    Z
    zucchini

    I trust the reasons that the above words are hard to write in cursive or hard to spell are pretty obvious.
    Last edited by kaisnowbird; January 17th, 2014 at 06:12 AM. Reason: Insert smiley's to indicate how much I detest writing these words!
    Kai

    "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." -- Lao Tzu


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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    I immediately thought of Mississippi. I also hate to write Quebec and Venezuela.


    bordeaux
    brought (I often write "bought" and vice versa)
    bungalow
    Carlyle (as in the Carlyle Hotel or Thomas Carlyle)
    chateau
    citizen
    critique
    curiosities (I always want to write "curiousities")
    Elysium
    encyclopedia
    epistemology
    fascism
    gryphon
    hegemony
    hippopotamus
    impartiality
    labyrinthine (which I cannot spell for the life of me)
    Lazarus
    medieval
    objectivity
    patriarchal
    pendulum
    phenomenon
    philology
    provincialism
    pyrotechnics
    renaissance
    rhinoceros
    thief (I always want to write "theif")
    zeitgeist (as in the "spirit" or "mood" of a time period)

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Wow, excellent beginning!

    kaisnowbird, you had me nodding with "accumulative," and snickering with agreement for "horse devours..."

    reprieve, "bought" (oooh, B/G word!) and "midevil" uh, "brought" and "medieval" are, well, evil but "Carlyle" is up and down and up and loopy... yeah, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Baccalaureate. Beauteousness. Those are tough words for me.

    I learned this difficult-to-write word today: orgulous: adj. Haughty. Proud. Disdainfully arrogant. It's an odd word.

    I've been trying to think of b/g words for you. How about backlogged? (Ugh! Double g's. And I find k's to be especially hard.) Baggins (as in Bilbo). Bogeyman. Gabardine. Gallbladder. Glabella (i.e., the part of the forehead between the eyebrows. I love this word, but it's difficult to write.)

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Obviously I hate anything with a double letters as I can never write them the same size/shape and it looks terribly sloppy.

    Also, as an artist I'm always encountering foreign artists and movements that I can barely pronounce, let alone spell. Thank god for spell check.

    Difficult to write

    FF
    Difficult
    Huff
    Puff
    Cuff
    Muff
    Buff
    Bluff
    Scruff
    Stuff
    Stiff

    ZZ
    Prestezza
    Pizza

    MM, NN, or MN
    Ammo
    Mummy
    Hammer
    Hummus
    Bunny
    Runny
    Funny
    Solemn
    Hymn
    Mnemonic


    Difficult to spell


    Antipodeans
    Constructivism
    Contrapposto
    Mingei
    Plasticien
    Faience/Faenza
    Precisionism
    Rasquqche
    Caravaggisti & Caravagesque
    Tachisme
    Les Automatiste
    Sfumato
    Chiaroscuro
    Repoussior


    Armoire
    Cadre
    Mnemonic
    Pneumatic
    Deign
    Borough
    Bough
    Subpoena

    P.S. what a fun challenge
    Last edited by Cookies; January 17th, 2014 at 06:50 PM.

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Lots of great additions!

    Double F's are just a mystery to me. I think sometimes the words were made up just to have a double letter by some 16th century scribe with a mean streak, along with words that look nothing like they sound. Then again, maybe we are finally running out of practical letter combinations and it is a 21st century stall.

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Wow, just noticed I got a sticky for this endeavor. Thanks, again, Dannzeman!

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    The only words I can think to add that hasn't already been mentioned is:

    quixotic
    rhythm
    sassafras

    for a b/g entry.... subgraphs

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    All three are a mess to write. Yup. Ugh. They are. (I have to try all these words out, you know?)

    Thanks, caribbean_skye!

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Quote Originally Posted by kia View Post
    All three are a mess to write. Yup. Ugh. They are. (I have to try all these words out, you know?)

    Thanks, caribbean_skye!
    I was supposed to write letters today but I've been shamming (ooh, double M's). After I get a few letters written tomorrow I'm going to print out a list of these words and will have fun writing those. Hopefully I'll remember to load up my flex pen and try it with those words too. I'm not sure what you're planning on doing but these words are great to practise with.

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    I haven't really pondered this, but it did occur to me that "thoughtfully" is a one-word workout.

    A particular bugbear for me is "it's". If you use compound caps on "t"s, it makes you wish you crossed them instead.

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Quote Originally Posted by caribbean_skye View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by kia View Post
    All three are a mess to write. Yup. Ugh. They are. (I have to try all these words out, you know?)

    Thanks, caribbean_skye!
    I was supposed to write letters today but I've been shamming (ooh, double M's). After I get a few letters written tomorrow I'm going to print out a list of these words and will have fun writing those. Hopefully I'll remember to load up my flex pen and try it with those words too. I'm not sure what you're planning on doing but these words are great to practise with.
    Practice is exactly the plan. In part two, we'll be getting creative.

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    I can't partake in entries for part two, of course (I can't win the challenge gift because I'm giving it away!), but I have another word for our list:

    Brian Goulet was telling about hating to write the names of some inks, and this one really hits a lot of the difficulties for writing: Tiananmen (from Tiananmen Square in China)

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Four more days to let us know what your difficult words and letter combinations are! Then we get into the heart of this matter.

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Quote Originally Posted by kia View Post
    Brian Goulet was telling about hating to write the names of some inks, and this one really hits a lot of the difficulties for writing: Tiananmen (from Tiananmen Square in China)
    I always have trouble with Tiananmen, too! It's one of my favorite Noodler's inks, but I cannot write the name of it for the life of me. I usually end up abbreviating it somehow in my ink journal. That's why Elysium is on my list. Liberty's Elysium, ugh! (It's a nice ink, though.)

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    yep Tiananmen is always a stumbling block and also another Noodler's one is Squeteague.

    But the worst of the lot is J.Herbin's "Lie de The"
    sinistral hypergraphica - a slurry of ink
    "Nothing means less than zero"

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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    As I started my list, I saw an obvious pattern emerge...

    Words I find difficult to physically write:
    Jazz - double z's kill me
    Dozer - okay, so single z's are a challenge, as well
    Pizzaz - see above
    Pizza - see above
    Glyph - the ups and downs of the letters makes it difficult to physically write
    Quixotic (unrealistic, idealistic) - I struggle going from the i to the x
    Zzyzx - a road I pass by every time I visit my parents; who thought of that!?

    Words with b and g:
    Gumbo
    Gamble
    Gibberish
    Brigade
    Braggart
    Last edited by everybodylovesbacon; January 22nd, 2014 at 05:37 PM.

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    Senior Member kia's Avatar
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    Default Re: Challenge! Presidents' Day International - Part 1

    Only one more day before we start part two! Here's the list of difficult words and letter combinations, so far. It includes a lot of artists' terms, science terms, as well as a few proper nouns, and some slang. Did I miss any? You still have time to add to the list!!

    accent
    accost
    accumulate
    accumulative
    acquiesce
    aficionado
    again
    aggravate
    amalgamate
    ammo
    ammunition
    annual
    annul
    Antipodeans
    armoire
    asbestos
    baccalaureate
    backlogged
    beauteousness
    beekeeper
    beggar
    benign
    berge
    Bilbo Baggins
    bluff
    bogeyman
    Bologna
    bookkeeper
    Bordeaux
    borough
    bough
    bourgeois
    bourgeoisie
    braggart
    brigade
    brigue
    brought
    buff
    bugbear
    bugle
    bungalow
    bungle
    bunny
    cadre
    cappuccino
    Caravagesque
    Caravaggisti
    Caribbean
    Carlyle
    chateau
    chauvinism
    Chiaroscuro
    citizen
    coffee
    collaboration
    commonwealth
    Constructivism
    continuum
    Contrapposto
    conundrum
    critique
    cuff
    cumulative
    curiosities
    curmudgeon
    curriculum
    Czechoslovakia
    dacalcomania
    dachshund
    daggers
    deambulatory
    decrudescence
    defiantly
    definitely
    deign
    derriere
    desmethyl raclopride
    difficult
    dizzyingly
    dodecylphosphocholine
    Dominique
    dozer
    eccentric
    egress
    Egypt
    Elysium
    Emmanuelle
    encyclopedia
    epistemology
    etymologically
    Faenza
    Faience
    fascism
    friend
    fuchsia
    funny
    gabardine
    gallbladder
    gamble
    gaminesque
    gastriloquist
    gerontocracy
    gibberish
    gibbet
    glabella
    glyph
    gleeb
    government
    Gryphon
    guerrilla
    gumbo
    hammer
    hegemony
    hemorrhage
    hierarchy
    highlighter
    hippopotamus
    hors d’oeuvre
    huff
    hummus
    hymn
    idiosyncrasy
    illegitimate
    impartiality
    incorporated
    indiscriminate
    interference
    J. Herbin Lie de The
    jazz
    knowledgeable
    labyrinth
    labyrinthine
    lagging
    lautenclavicymbel
    Lazarus
    Les Automatiste
    lieutenant
    liltingly
    maneuver
    mannequin
    Marrissa
    maximum
    mayonnaise
    medieval
    Mingei
    minimisation (minimization)
    minimum
    miscellaneous
    Mississippi
    mnemonic
    muff
    mummy
    necessarily
    nutritious
    objectivity
    orgulous
    paraphernalia
    particularly
    patriarchal
    pendulum
    Pennsylvania
    pharmaceutical
    phenomenon
    philologically
    philology
    pick-pocketed
    pizza
    pizzazz
    plagiarize
    Plasticien
    pneumatic
    pneumonia
    Precisionism
    Presteza
    pronunciation
    provincialism
    puff
    pyrotechnics
    qigong
    quadruple
    Quebec
    questionnaire
    quinquagenarian
    quinquagesimal
    quinquennium
    quixotic
    Rasquqche
    rearrange
    reconnaissance
    renaissance
    Repoussior
    resurrect
    rhapsody
    rhinoceros
    rhythm
    rhythmically
    ridiculous
    runny
    rutabaga
    sacrilegious
    salicylic acid
    salvum
    sassafras
    schism
    schizophrenic
    scruff
    Sfumato
    shamming
    silhouette
    singing
    solemn
    stiff
    straight
    straightening
    stratosphere
    stealthy
    strings
    stuff
    subgraph
    subpoena
    substrate
    subterfuge
    surrogate
    synonymously
    syzygy
    Tachisme
    telecommunication
    Tennessee
    thief
    thoughtfully
    Tiananmen
    uninhibited
    Venezuela
    vinaigrette
    wherever
    Xavier
    yacht
    zeitgeist
    Zzyzx


    double letters, especially m, n, r, f, s, z
    capital D, H, I, L, N, O, Q, S, U, X, Y, Z
    letter combinations mn
    Last edited by kia; January 24th, 2014 at 08:32 AM. Reason: even more words

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