B is for Bananagrams

Even if you haven't played it before, most of us have at least heard of this game, right? I first played it over the holidays with my family (Sweeney side) and now I am a little addicted to playing it online through Facebook. It's kind of like Scrabble, but each player has their own board and has to use up all their letters to make complete words before anyone else. Also similar to Scrabble, Bananagrams lets you use two letter words; things like it, is, as, me, to, am, etc. However, it also lets you use all those really ridiculous two-letter words that no one has ever heard of, words like xi, ka, ee, ae and ea. There are actually 101 acceptable two letter words! And since I have been religiously using them to annihilate other Bananagrams players online, I thought I might as well find out if any of them have a meaning that might actually cause me to use it in a sentence one day before I die. So here are a few....

1. Qi- (chay)(in Oriental medicine, martial arts, etc) the vital energy believed to circulate round the body in currents. Also known as chi.

2. Ta- (tah) British slang for thank you.

3. Ai- (ah-ee) a three-toed sloth, Bradypus tridactylus, inhabiting forests of southern Venezuela, the Guianas, and northern Brazil, having a diet apparently restricted to the leaves of the trumpet-tree, and sounding a high-pitched cry when disturbed.

4. Hm- (hmm) used typically to express thoughtful absorption, hesitation, doubt, or perplexity. So the correct spelling of Hmmm is actually Hm. Hm!

5. Ka- (kah) a spiritual entity, an aspect of the individual, believed to live within the body during life and to survive it after death.

6. Ba- (bah) an aspect of the soul, represented as a human-headed bird.

7. Oi- (oy) a type of punk rock featuring violent, racist lyrics, associated esp. with skinheads. Oy!

8. Re- (ray) the syllable used for the second tone of a diatonic scale. Or "a drop of golden sun" for us dummies.

9. Aa- (ah-ah) basaltic lava having a rough surface.

10. Xu- (soo) an aluminum coin and monetary unit of Vietnam, the 100th part of a dong.

So could I ever use these words in a sentence? Let's see...

The other day I paid 4 xus for an oi album. As the first sounds came out of my cd player, I thought, "Hm, dying ais sound better than this!" It was terrible! Those guys couldn't even sing re on key. It negatively effected my qi so much that I probably should now scrub my eardrums with aa. Pretty sure that even my ka didn't survive that album! Ta, but next time I'll buy the album with the picture of the ba on the front :)