Three-Letter Words For You Scrabble Nerds

by Dictionary Scoop    Need a few tricks up your sleeve for playing Scrabble? It’s not always the long words that will impress the other players: Sometimes it’s the surprisingly short combination of letters that none of them knew.    Let’s explore some of the most obscure –yet perfectly valid– three-letter words. 1-Cwm    Before …

Dave Mason And A Place That’s Far Away

by Kevin Burton    There was just one song that brought Dave Mason into my top-40-based musical awareness in the 70s, but that was enough to keep him there.    Mason died April 19, and tributes began to pour in from people who knew him as I didn’t,  as a co-founder of the British rock …

Fill In The Blank: To Live Is ______

by Kevin Burton    One of my teachers planted a question in our minds: “Where is the front?”    His idea was that once you know, and everyone agrees on, which side of an object or a building is the front, you can go on describing the object, giving instructions about it. You have it …

The Meaning Of Ten Geographical Terms

by dictionary Scoop    Geography, like all academic disciplines, has its own vocabulary and terminology. Concerned with everything from physical phenomena of the planet to social interactions, geographers have many specialized terms and concepts.    You’ve probably used some of the words in this list. Yet, do you know exactly what they mean or where …

Floating An Idea For Next Year’s Anniversary

by Kevin Burton    From out of the blue, (and from the Associated Press) I get a super idea for a fun adventure. And my wife is shooting it down.    But wait.  I say this is a developing story. We have almost a whole year to talk things over.    Stay tuned dear readers, …

Our Getaway In Beautiful Downtown Newton

by Kevin Burton    “There are no boring towns, just boring people,” said my first editor. Not all his nuggets were golden. That one was, and is.    My wife Jeannette and I are not boring people Thus we were in no danger of being bored, though we made the curious choice of Newton, Kansas …

Staying (Tornado) Safe In The Neighborhood

by Kevin Burton    All’s well that ends well when you are dining out. And that doesn’t always mean having a tasty dessert.    Things do tend to end well when we’re hearing from the Good News Network. Today GNN’S Andy Corbley writes of a restaurant manager whose quick thinking saved lives when severe weather …

Embrace The Blessing Of Being Inadequate

by Kevin Burtom    A recent message from In Touch ministries begins, “From time to time, a sense of insufficiency will surface in all of us.”    Yeah, I’m thinking, “what do you mean from time to time?” If you mean from one minute to the next, then sure, from time to time I feel inadequate. …

Quibbles And Bits: B-Side Fortune Cookies

by Kevin Burton    I list these songs below, and chances are you’ll pick up right away where I am going with them:    “Laughing” and “Undun” by the Guess Who, “It’s Too Late” and  “I Feel The Earth Move” by Carole King  “Who’ll Stop The Rain” and  “Travelling Band” by Credence Clearwater Revival, “Something” …

More Financial Words With Surprising Origins

by Kevin Burton    Some of the words we use to discuss finances didn’t start as money words, as we learned Wednesday, from a list from Merriam-Webster dictionary.    We continue the theme today with a colorful phrase from the world of poker: Blue-chip    Blue-chip, meaning “a stock issue of high investment quality that …