Growing With the grain
We’re a little tardy to the sociable with this one, but only because such a great conceit catches conflagration in a trice.
FreeRice.com, sister site of the long-running Poverty.com, is the most altruistic study guide ever. It’s one big vocab test, but for each word you get right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Advertisers foot the bill.
The site avers aggrandized vocabularies as one of its vocations, but a good number of the words—sibyl, animalcule, eupnea, ibex—you haven’t espied since the SATs. And—thesaurus-ized grammar columns notwithstanding—they’re about as useful to you today as they were then.
Last Friday the 2-month-old site passed 5 billion grains donated. Go get smart and get someone else full.
Lesson suffering
Sure, the FreeRice.com folks claim to be solving world hunger and blah blah blah, but astute grammarians know who they really are: smart Republican loyalists standing behind their commander in chief.
George W. Bush, they reason, hasn’t really done much to alleviate suffering and hunger around the world. Tough to do when you’re busy creating so many new refugees, whether in Iraq or New Orleans. (Yes, we remember the post-Katrina to-refugee-or-not-to-refugee controversy; just go with it.)
They also know Dubya and the English language have never been the closest of friends. Slate editor Jacob Weisberg just published the sixth and final volume of his ongoing George W. Bushisms series: Bush at War (With the English Language).
Included chestnuts: “I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it’s easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?” “One of my concerns is that the healthcare not be as good as it can possibly be.” “We shouldn’t fear a world that is more interacted.”
But now, thanks to FreeRice.com, the president is sitting in the Oval Office, clicking away, learning the language and doing his first good thing for the planet in seven years.
Is our presidents learning yet?
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