Minnesotans Here’s A Fun Way To Pass The Time

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is “The Big Bang Theory”. One of the characters on that show, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, was a young genius who had little to no social skills and was overbearing in a somewhat endearing kind of way.  

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Dr. Cooper would host this show on the internet called “Fun with Flags”, and he would explain why he thought the facts about the featured flag were interesting.  

Of course, if that were a real internet show, the peak audience wouldn’t be very big (would it?). The audience would probably lean toward those of a certain intellect.  

This isn’t the same type of thing, but you could have some fun with words.  

Merriam-Webster has a website called Time Traveler which allows you to look back through the years to see when a word first appeared in print.  

All you do is choose the year and then the site will show you all the words that first appeared in print that year.  

Now, I'm not sure who is going to be able to accurately fact check Merriam-Webster, but they are the “word” people after all, if they don’t know, my guess is nobody else does either. 

This site does more than allow you to search the years words were first in print, you can play one of the “word” games under the header of games and quizzes. There are several there for you to choose from.  

There’s a tab for Grammar, you can see a list of the most confused words, spelling and pronunciation- which allows you to see the words that are most likely going to be misspelled or said incorrectly. 

Before you know it, you’re 30 minutes in and find yourself having fun, or at least more fun than you thought you’d have.   

I’m totally not saying you should do this while you’re working to appear busy, but if there’s ever a “void” in your workday, this is a good way to fill it.