Spring has sprung here in the south. The pollen has wreaked havoc on my health for the last few days. I felt well enough and motivated to get out and accomplish some “stuff and thangs” on Saturday, hence the absence of a new post. But, today being Sunday, I can’t resist posting about my favorite subject: The Walking Dead.
For those of you who use Twitter, fans everywhere are attempting to dominate the site with the trending phrase #TWDFamily today (and every Sunday for that matter) especially around 9pm eastern standard time, which is when the Walking Dead would normally air. I know I’ll be doing my part to assist the rest of the family!
In the meantime, might I suggest playing a little game? A number of fan sites have already played this game, so many of you will be familiar with how it works. It holds a special place in my heart because it is a game I used to play with my mother. We called it Words Within Words. Mom and I would come up with the name of an actor or fictional character, and then we would compete to see who could come up with the most words using the letters from that person’s name. Sometimes, we would work on the lists all weekend long.
Mom would always come up with games like that to keep our brains sharp. Whenever we had any free time, the Scrabble board would always be in play. We would knock out numerous crossword puzzles every day. Out of the blue she would ask me, “Name all 50 states in alphabetical order.” Or “How many US Presidents can you name?” And I would have a small window of time to see if I could beat her score. And forget about Boggle…no one could touch us at Boggle.
Nowadays, word games are bittersweet for me. I don’t have anyone to play them with. Those who live here, in what we affectionately call “the bubble”, are busy with work, and when not working, they are busy with electronics. People that I know would rather play Words With Friends, or Scramble, or Draw Something than to sit down and play a board game or a game of cards. Those who would enjoy it live too far away now for it to even be a possibility. And as for Mom…she has Alzheimer’s. The days of hunting for words are long gone. Now, we hunt for names, complete sentences, facts, sight-words. It’s more important to find laughter and so we play new games.
But I’m sure if Mom were able to, she would beat all of your behinds at the game I’m about to hit you with: How many words can you find within the words THE WALKING DEAD?
Here are the rules:
- Words must be at least 2 letters long
- Words must be in English (no foreign language words, sorry)
- Words must be found in a standard dictionary (some slang is acceptable, but if it’s not in the dictionary, it’s not welcome here)
- No proper nouns (this means anything that starts with a capital letter, such as names or certain places, etc.)
- Letters can be used only once within any given word (example: there is only one letter G in the walking dead, so your words cannot have 2 Gs in it)
You don’t have to list all of the words you found in the comment section. I choose to believe you. I do know, from searching online, people have found between 200-300 words. It is possible to do. So put on your thinking caps. Grab a pad and pen. And have at it! I’ll work on my list this afternoon and see how many I can personally come up with. Hopefully I won’t embarrass my mother.