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Weird Word Thursday: Vol. 1

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Word verification is a time-consuming (some say necessary) evil in the blogosphere. Some bloggers want me to prove that I am an actual human and not a spam bot in order to leave a comment. Fair enough. But why do some bloggers hide the word verification widget? Nothing ruffles my blogging feathers more than to hit the post button after making a comment only to have that word verification thingy pop up. I scream at the computer that I don't have time for this! I estimate that word verification truncates my blog participation by 50%. That's a lot of unrequited bloggy love.

The other reason I despise word verification is the the made-up gibberish that masquerade as words. Case in point, the "word" spezonsi...really?! I fancy myself a wordsmith and it enrages me to type a string of letters that don't mean anything. Don't you hate when you spell one of these non-words wrong and you have to try again? It sends me into a tizzy!

I know word verification is not going away anytime soon, but I figure I can at least have a little fun with it. So, I present you with Weird Word Thursday. Each week, I will feature my favorite non-word from the many word verifications I've encountered and make up a definition. This week...


DUCKRUFF (duhk*ruhf)-noun, regrowth of shaven hair that is rough to the touch, also known as stubble

Example: Carly forgot to shave the duckruff under her arms before she went dancing in her strapless dress.


Got a better definition? Leave it in a comment, no word verification required.

12 comments:

Kimberly Grabinski said...

I hate word verification too, sometimes it takes me 3 or 4 times to type it right. I con't comment on some blogs because of it...

Duckruff - noun: the spot on your 6-year old's hair that no matter how much gel you use will not LAY DOWN.

Unknown said...

That's a GOOD one! LOL!

Unknown said...

Great definitions! Here's a question...how does one turn OFF the word verification thingy on a blog? I'm not even sure if my blog asks, if it does, I'm more than happy to get rid of it because they annoy me too!

~Lauri
http://knitsandreads.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

here's a link with easy instructions for disabling word verification on your blog:
http://typobloger.blogspot.com/2009/12/turn-off-word-verification.html

Supermommy said...

This is hilarious! LOL I do not like word verification either, but I recently turned mine on because I would miss when someone posted to my blog or I would have to go and search to see if I had any new ones.

Unknown said...

@mother plus teacher: you can turn on email notifications to be alerted when new comments are made on your blog

Blogs said...

Hahaha...I like it DuckRuff- I don't have that on my blog-it's stupid!

Anonymous said...

Yep. I hate the whole thing! Ones that have it, I give it a one click minimum. If after that, it still sends me back to the bottom of the page without posting my thoughts - I'm out! And yes I hate when they say I misspelled their nonsense word. I just sit back and go "REALLY?! WHAT NERVE!"

My best, Lynn

Jana Burrow said...

Have you ever played that game Balderdash? It's exactly like this, only the words are real. They are just words that no one EVER hears. Everyone puts a "definition" and you guess which one is right. Anyway, I TOTALLY agree with you on this. Do you get a lot of spam? I never did before and I am getting more now. I am really hesitant to put the word verification back on though!

Maureensk said...

So I don't even know if I use captcha because I use Disqus. I don't think it does, it doesn't for me anyway. I use Disqus because I like to be able to have nested comments. Some captcha is less annoying, like when it is very clear to read and when the words are real words or seem like real words. i.e. "Duckruff" is easier for me than "XGBA17H" would be. "Duckruff" sounds like it would refer to dandruff on ducks.

Lee-Ann said...

LMAO! Awesome! I hate the verification thing too! I also despise weird programs that let you leave comments, where I have to type in everything just to leave a comment! Ummm, yeah, most of the time I don't even bother. Truthfully it makes me want to stick with just blogger blogs that keep it simple!

Unknown said...

@ Jana-never played Balderdash, but sounds like my kind of game. I've been spammed twice I think and I just delete it.

@ Maureen-dandruff on ducks, LMAO! good one! there isn't a captcha when I leave you comments

@Lee-Ann-you can enable your computer to fill in your info for these type of comment fields

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