Being Tested For Your O Levels

I received some good comments about the previous blog which was getting your L plate. A reference to knowing some of the words which can be made by hooking a letter in front of another word beginning with L.

Getting you O levels may be a concept in the English education system rather than our own, but it seems the appropriate reference for being good at hooking letters in front of words beginning with the letter O

Your quiz this week is to come up as many words as you can by hooking a letter in front of the following words

OBANG OBEY OBIA OGLE

OLLA OLOGY OLPE OMBU

ONION ONIUM ONLY ONTIC

ONTO OORIE OPAL OPERA

OPPO ORRA OUTRE OVARY

All of those words take at least one front hook. A couple take as many as 3. Just try to work out what ones you would play if you had the right letter.

You will already know the meaning of a lot of those words, but some of the more unusual ones are:

An OBANG is an obsolete Japanese gold coin and OBIA is a form of West Indian witchcraft. An OLPE is a Greek jug and an OMBU is a South American tree.

OORIE is a Scots word meaning dingy or shabby, and ORRA, meaning not matched is also Scots. Sometimes I feel my blog wouldn’t be complete without at least a couple of words from North of the border!

OLOGIES and ONIUMS are sort of similar to each other. OLOGIES refers to sciences in general that end with those letters and ONIUMS refers to ionic compounds in general that end with those letters

ONTIC is the most interesting one. My word program says that it is an adjective meaning having a real existence. Just for fun I googled ‘opposite of ontic’ expecting it to come up with something like ethereal, but instead I got matches talking about Epistemic and Ontic approaches to Quantum Mechanics

Anyway, that is enough about the base wards. Here are the answers:

GOBANG A Japanese board game

KOBANG A different spelling of OBANG, the Japanese gold coin

My blog wouldn’t be complete without at least a couple of Japanese words

MOBEY Slang for a mobile phone – also MOBE, MOBIE and MOBY

COBIA A large fish

BOGLE A sort of dance. Can be used as a verb meaning to do that dance

FOGLE A silk handkerchief

HOLLA To shout out a greeting

MOLLA A Muslim learned in theology and law

OOLOGY The study of bird’s eggs

GOLPE A round purple object in heraldry

KOMBU A type of Japanese seaweed used to flavour stock

GONION A part of the lower jaw

RONION A mangy or scabby creature

CONIUM A poisonous herb

GONIUM An immature reproductive cell

IONIUM A radioactive isotope of thorium

FONLY Foolishly

SONLY Pertaining to a son

PONTIC Relating to the PONS a part of the brain. Also PONTAL

CONTO Portuguese money

COORIE A Scots word meaning to snuggle

GOORIE A mongrel

TOORIE A scots word for a small heap or a knob of hair

COPAL A hard reason obtained from tropical trees

NOPAL A Central American cactus

POPERA Operatic music presented in a way to gain popular appeal

ZOPPO Having a syncopated or changing beat

MORRA A game of guessing how many fingers are being held up

SORRA An Irish term for either sorrow or the devil

FOUTRE A Scots term meaning to mess around aimlessly

COVARY To vary the main values together

Happy Scrabbling

Patrick