A Little Challenge and Word of the Week

November was the ninth month in the ancient Roman calendar. The World Series is under way and each game so far has gone no more than nine innings. We are nine days away from Friday the 13th. Nine is the atomic number of fluorine. We're obsessed with nine today. Can you tell?


1. nonagon: (a) a game of cards with up to four players, each with nine cards, the object of which is to obtain nine consecutive cards through drawing and discarding;
(b) a bowling pin used in ninepins;
(c) a polygon of nine angles and nine sides;
(d) a combination of nine instruments or voices.

2. an English unit of length equal to nine inches:
(a) span; (b) arc; (c) ninch; (d) sector.

3. the ninth muse of Greek mythology:
(a) Calliope; (b) Urania; (c) Thalia; (d) Talitha.

4. earned run average:
(a) the average number of earned runs per game scored against a pitcher in baseball determined by dividing the total of earned runs scored against him by the total number of innings pitched and multiplying by nine;
(b) the average number of runs a player scores in a game, calculated by dividing the number of actual runs in a season by the number of games played in a season;
(c) average runs per game, calculated by dividing a teams' runs scored in a season by nine (innings per game);
(d) a batter's batting percentage divided by nine.

5. a person whose age is in the nineties:
(a) ninogenerian; (b) nimogenerian; (c) nonagenarian; (d) nanogenerian.

6. balkline: (a) an imaginary line nine inches off the pitcher's mound, beyond which if a pitcher steps while pitching, he is called on a balk;
(b) a fishing line used by fishermen to catch squid;
(c) a whip made of usually nine knotted lines or cords fastened to a handle;
(d) one of four lines parallel to the cushions of a billiard table dividing it into nine compartments.

7. novena:
(a) a Roman Catholic period of prayer lasting nine consecutive days;
(b) a period of blindness and fasting (Acts 9:9);
(c) the first nine years of a royal reign;
(d) a hand in poker consisting of all nines.

8. a group of nine:
(a) ennead; (b) mennead; (c) minead; (d) monead.

9. stanine:
(a) the ninth light of a menorah;
(b) having nine units or members;
(c) a system of measurement or currency in which the basic units increase by powers of 9;
(d) any of the nine classes into which a set of normalized standard scores arranged according to rank in educational testing are divided.

10. Yarborough:
(a) the ninth Duke of York;
(b) a hand in bridge or whist containing no ace and no card higher than a nine;
(c) the ninth-ever winner of the Daytona 500;

(d) all the above.

Answers: 1:c 2:a 3:b 4:a 5:c 6:d 7:a 8:a 9:d 10:b

Rate Yourself:

1 to 2 correct: Bottom of the ninth and you got nothin'. 3 to 5 correct: Bummer: That means 5 to 7 INcorrect. 6 to 7 correct: At least you know why six is afraid of seven. 8 to 9 correct: Maybe nine is the new ten. All 10 correct: You deserve a $9 million contract!

WORD OF THE WEEK:cabal
Pronunciation: ka-BAL
Function: noun
Etymology: French cabale cabala, intrigue, cabal, from Medieval Latin cabbala cabala, from Late Hebrew qabbalah, literally, received (lore)
Date: 1614
Definition: the artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government)

Example: "Can the Obama administration achieve anything with Ahmadinejad's cabal on the nuclear front that could possibly justify its betrayal of the Iranian people and American values? We think not. And we believe the administration still has time to change course and not lose the faith of a people longing to join the Free World."
- Akbar Atri and Mariam Memarsadeghi in the Wall Street Journal, 11/4/09, p. A25.

Definition source: Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary.

Word of the Week and Challenge Quiz courtesy of Proofread NOW.