Tuesday 21 August 2012

What's a Stook?


Today I thought I'd created a new word. I was very pleased with myself in an intellectual kind of way. It amused the left half of my brain to think in terms of dictionaries and alphabets.
It all came about from a simple typo (of which word, I'm afraid I forget). Anyway, Bill Gates drew his squiggly red line under my word informing me I was a spelling numpty. However, before I corrected, I stopped and stared. For was this not a great-sounding word? Did it not conjure up images of West African birds with enormous iridescent wingspans or mysterious doppelganger spirits that feed on the souls of those they resemble?
Sadly it turns out that a stook is already a word. There's a picture of one at the top of this post. Some kind of sheaf of hay.. Hang on though... there's more than one, and they are identical And, if it was black it might look a bit like a Dementor from Harry Potter. Watch out! It's after your soul....

stook Pronunciation: /stʊk, stuːk/

British
Definition of stook

noun

  • a group of sheaves of grain stood on end in a field.

 

5 comments:

  1. Who would have thought that stook was already taken... not a bad word... and deserves better than sheaves of hay and things... mind you numpty is a cracking word... now my word for the day...xx

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  2. You crack me up! If anyone can come up with a new word, it's clever YOU! xoxo

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  3. Ha an English word foxes American spelling :-) Better dictionary on Scrabble on facebook, that has English and USA English spellings too. You've been spammed by idiot on comment one. Better start monitoring your comments or you will get loads of rubbish. X j

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  4. Wow! This brings back memories from 65 years ago. I used to work (no pay) on the farm next door to us, and, apart from driving the tractor (at 12!) to cut the corn while the farmer and family gathered the sheaves of wheat from the ante-diluting cutter/binder, I used to build the sheaves of corn into stocks which allowed the sheaves to dry out. Hard work, and dusty, but I loved it. Rhanks for the memory. Mr Gates now doesn't like 'stooks' and changed it to 'stocks'. Why can't he just count his money and leave our spelling choices alone. It's STOOKS' Bill.

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  5. Bill also doesn't like the word ANTE-DILUVIAN,

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Thank you for your comments - I always love to hear what you think :)

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