Friday, October 29, 2021

Word of the Day -- Oobleck

When we were doing our puzzles this morning, there was a new quiz.  And it was about new words that make it into the dictionary.  I'm always fascinated by these and so glad when new ones are added.  That's because I'm not a stickler for formality in language; I don't believe that the rules are hard and set.  Things change over time, words shift, spellings change, grammar, formatting, all of that has to move with the world.  


 

So when I saw this word come up, I had no idea what it meant but I was correct in my guess, mainly because I wanted it to be that so bad:

Oobleck -- a mixture of corn starch and water that behaves like a liquid when at rest and like a solid when pressure is applied.

The first time I ever heard about this was on Mythbusters, which was one of my favorite shows when it

was running.  They explored this and of course ramped it up in Mythbusters style.  

Now you can find viral videos of people doing this at home.  It's a really cool experiment to play around with.  I have not tried it yet, but I plan to this weekend, I just have to buy some more corn starch.  I think the ratio is 2 parts corn starch to 1 part water.  

And it indeed does come from Dr. Seuss, though I did not remember it from the books, that's been a loooong time for me.  

Derivation -- after oobleck, a viscous green substance in the children's book Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss geisel

 So if I get around to playing with some oobleck I'll try and get some video for next week.  Have a great weekend folks, and enjoy this video of some oobleck!



 

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