Amuse-bouche: “I joined the Messy’s Anonymous group only last week, but now I can’t find my membership book in all this clutter!”
Today’s Wonderful Word: “alley-oop.”
Interjection – used as a shout of encouragement or exhortation, especially when coordinating efforts to lift a heavy object.
Basketball – a quick-score play in which a high, arching pass is made to a teammate close to the basket, who leaps to catch the ball and in midair drops or stuffs it through the basket.
Etymology: “Alley-oop” comes from French “allez-hop,” which generally means “off you go” or “go on up.” “Allez” is a form of “aller,” “to go.” “Hop” is an expressive word with a variety of meanings and is also the source of “hoopla.” “Alley-oop” was first recorded in English in the late 1910s.
Heads up, here comes an alley-oop.
Have you ever played Heads Up?
Get together with some friends and take turns going around the circle. When it’s your turn, you’ll hold the phone on your forehead so that everyone else can see the screen. A word will appear on the screen when the 1- to 2-minute timer starts. Everyone will describe the word to you, and it’s your job to guess what’s on the screen. If you’re stuck on a word and don’t know what everyone’s trying to describe, you can tilt the screen up to pass. If you guess the word everyone’s describing, you tilt the screen down and it counts as a point and goes on to the next word. Guess as many words as possible before time runs out!
We played a version of this game at La Table Française, a French conversation group at Baylor. A French word shows on the screen, and everyone at the table has to describe the word to you in French. There are many different categories in Heads Up, such as animals, sports, celebrities, charades, movies, mixed / miscellaneous, and more. It’s hard enough in your native language. Try it in a foreign language for a challenging exercise.
Answer to Saturday’s riddle:
Weigh three weights against three weights. If the sides balance, set aside the six weights and weigh one against one from the remaining three that haven’t been on the scale yet. If the sides balance, you know for certain that the heaviest weight is the one that was never weighed. In the alternate case, weigh three weights against three weights. If the sides don’t balance, take the heavier set of three and weigh one of the three against another one of the three. If one side is heavier, you know for certain that it’s the heaviest of the whole group.
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Ça vous dit quelque chose ? 
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