About Me

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Delta, British Columbia, Canada
I took very early retirement from teaching in '06 and did some traveling in Europe and the UK before settling down to do some private tutoring. As a voracious reader, I have many books waiting in line for me to read. Tell me I shouldn't read something, and I will. I'm a happy, optimistic person and I love to travel and through that believe that life can be a continuous learning experience. I'm looking forward to traveling more some day. I enjoy walking, cycling, water aerobics & and sports like tennis, volleyball, and fastpitch/baseball. I'm just getting into photography as a hobby and I'm enjoying learning all the bits and bobs of my digital camera. My family is everything to me and I'm delighted to be the mother of two girls and the Gramma of a boy and a girl. I may be a Gramma, but I'm at heart just a girl who wants to have fun.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

X is for eXtending one's vocabulary

Only three more weeks until ABC Wednesday becomes a new and improved way of reaching the realms of the world.  Melody takes over as Administrator with two assistants and a team made up of former ABCW team members plus some new ones.  Our eXcitement builds with anticipation to see how things work out.  But in the meantime, do continue to post as we'd love to see a push of contributions rather than a dismal dying out. 

The letter X is always a difficult week to find a word to fit and having looked through most of my posts, I noticed that 1 out of 2 posts seems to be Xmas.  This time I decided to try to improve my own vocabulary and thus improve yours as well.  So here are my new X words.

XANTHROCHROID refers to the phenotype of persons who are fair-complexioned and light-haired.  A phenotype is the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.  Both of my daughters fit into the category, being blonde-haired, blue-eyed, with fair complexions.  However, they've coloured their hair so much throughout their lives that heaven only knows what their "natural" colour is now!  The first shot is when we lived in Ottawa and visited Upper Canada Village on the St. Lawrence River (1987) and the second is when we went to Cape Cod and saw President John F. Kennedy's memorial there (1988).
XHOSA are a Bantu people native to the Cape of Good Hope Province in South Africa. Xhosa peoples were well established by the time of the Dutch arrival in the mid-7th century, and occupied much of eastern South Africa from the Fish River to land inhabited by Zulu-speakers south of the modern city of Durban.


XEBEC, also spelled zebec, was a Mediterranean sailing ship that was used mostly for trading. It would have a long overhanging bowsprit and aft-set mizzen mast. It can also refer to a small, fast vessel of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, used almost exclusively in the Mediterranean Sea.

XESTURGY is the process of polishing stones.

XOANON  is a statue made of wood, primitive in nature, that is covered in gold and ivory.
So there you have it - I hope you've improved your vocabulary somewhat.  I know I have as I'd never heard any of those words before.  Thanks to our eXtra special administrator, the eXuberant Roger and the eXtremely wonderful group of assistants.  Also thanks to the eXceptional imagination of Denise Nesbitt, the creator of ABC Wednesday 10 years ago!

16 comments:

Roger Owen Green said...

OK, you win the nest X words contest. As is often the case, I cheated.

ROG, ABCW

MelodyK said...

;-) You've succeeded in teaching me some new words... what a wonderful consequence of joining a meme like this, isn't it

Have a X-traordinary ABC-day / week
♫ M e l ☺ d y ♫ (abc-w-team)
Preview Round 21, starting july 12th

photowannabe said...

Now these words are impressive.
I have to say that I took the easy way out this time and did words that sound like X.
Thanks for all your work for keeping ABC alive.

Rajesh said...

These words are very new to me.

Photo Cache said...

Well done. You have done your homework with the letter X. And thanks for educating us on these "new" words.

Ewok's ABC WEDNESDAY

Anonymous said...

very eXotic words

carol l mckenna said...

Creative post and photos for X ~ ^_^ ~ Great vocabulary ~

Hildred said...

What an eXemplary post - you have eXcelled yourself, Leslie....

Klara S said...

Thank you for that lesson. Very good post.

Su-sieee! Mac said...

My vocabulary has definitely expanded, Leslie. Thank you very much. I'm glad you illustrated each word. That helps me grasp the meaning so much more.

Gattina said...

Congratulations ! you found a lot of words and you also enlarged my vocabulary, lol !

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

I like that polishing of stones, and the boat, as we are watching the American's cup now.

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