trappings of mindlings

Today’s Office Game Mind Trap Question:

Which of the following words doesn’t belong, and why?

ORIEL

ORANGE

MONTH

OIL

Well, how easy is that? Month, of course… ahh, but it is Mind Trap, and they want us to think it’s month. So what the heck could it be? We sat in the office for ten minutes trying to figure the damn thing out, finally read the answer through the back of the card… OIL. The RA said that if we could give the reason why without cheating, we could get five points. We couldn’t figure it out and finally read the answer outright:

OIL. It is the only word of the four that rhymes with other words in the English language.

Lame, but the RA said that if we could prove it wrong, we’d get ten points. Lo and behold, some casual research conducted by our in-house word major discovered that the word ‘boreal’ rhymes with ‘oriel’. We recorded the spoken Merriam-Webster pronunciations on MiniDisc and brought it down to the RA.

Ten points, but more importantly we proved Mind Trap wrong. Even if we don’t win Office Game, we win the self-fulfilling Warrior Game.

I listened to Phish’s Sugarbush show in its entirety tonight, and I cannot believe how absolutely amazing that set is… they are so tight, so wild… their subtle acoustic shenanigans are stunning. Precise. Energy. WHA! It’s so good! WHA! My face hurts from smiling so much and I can’t stop shaking. I feel as weak as a kitten. It is the greatest feeling ever.