A more condensed way to ask the anagram question of Tuesday maybe: What service person for one of  America’s military forces is anagram for plural service people in another force?

Answer to the anagram puzzle: Marine -><-Airmen.

A recent study published in May showed that adults who were more apt to pick up statistical regularities, or patterns to the rest of us non-scientist people – were quicker to pick up a second language than those who did not grasp patterns as quickly.   That’s not to say if an anagram or pattern spotting is a snap for you, it’s time to rush out and try to learn Turkish or Czech by Rosetta Stone and osmosis.  Continue reading “Anagram Answer” →

Have you ever played crossword constructor, Jeopardy champ and Harvard brainiac Joon Pahk’s Guess My Word?  One letter can change the outcome of the game, and stump you but good. You could be going from immunity – protection, or exemption from an obligation or penalty. Immunity, first used in the 15^th century, is a Middle English word rooted in the Latin word for munia (services) and munus (services).   Switch one letter around, and suddenly you’ve got impunity – exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action.  Taken from Middle French or Latin, this word draws from impunitas (without punishment), rooted in poena, punishment.  While both words employ the negative prefix, im-,  their roots are quite different – service versus punishment. Continue reading “Just one letter” →