Do you know what is cedilla?
We will come to it soon!
Connections is a tricky game by the NYT team! You are supposed to form groups of four similar words or select a group which have some similarity!
Most of the times it is not a straight forward derivation!
Like one of the pairing or rather grouping (which I after excluding others!) is the link that the ends of these words contain human body parts! Sometimes it may be the beginning! Or the words may begin with a common theme while the words themselves are different in meaning!
It can also be that the words end in colours!
So You start with a grid of 16 mixed-up words and then select four words that share a common thread and press “Submit”!
The game purposely includes “red herrings”—words that seem to fit into multiple categories, but there is only one unique solution that solves the entire board!
It really challenges your brain and many times you get words whose meaning may elude you! Like you may get all the words in a saying but they would actually not be in a group! The relation is something different than what you thought!
Couple of days back there was this word which stunned me and after completion I had to get to the bottom of it!
That was cedilla!
So apparently A cedilla is a small hook or tail mark (¸) placed under a letter—most commonly the letter c to make ç!
It apparently changes a hard “k” sound into a soft “s” sound before the vowels a, o, and u!
One common usage is in French (façade), Portuguese (coração), Catalan, and other languages! So the placement of cedilla makes the C sound like S!
Placed only under a c that comes before a, o, or u! Then you may wonder why not after e or I? This is because because a normal c is already soft there!
It is also sometimes used under an s or other letters in non-Romance languages like Turkish to change sounds! So when it is used under the letter S (ş) to make an “sh” sound!
It came from Spanish where cedilla, meant “little z”!
Apparently long ago, a small z was written under a c to show it sounded like an s, which slowly shrank into the small tail we use!
So now you know CEDILLA! Hope the connections do not stun you like me!
Then again I was really stunned by Radhika’s role in Thaai Kizhavi!
Better to sketch a woman on Vara mahalaxmi Vratham day!
May goddess Laxmi bless you with prosperity and happiness…
Shub ratri…
ramadocblog 