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[Hotrock]

Try writing a short story in a topic of your own choosing without using the letter  'E'.
This is not as easy as you might think but you will need to find different words than the ones you might normally use.
Have fun. 

[Hotrock]

Hm, I'd have thought this challenge would be of interest.
Any other ideas folks?

[The Ninja King, Cobra Angels]

 

[Hotrock]

Or put oddly, my cogitation study brought this difficult confrontation to mind hoping it might form an attraction to you good folk
Any additional options good inhabitants of this forum?

[Shanda]

An aardvark is an odd animal. As a child, I quit running with a swift stop just a hop, skip and a jump away from an aardvark. This ground was not far from our campground.  As big as a dog house, this hairy animal was vacuuming up ants with a snout as long as his body. Not noticing my panicky, and shaking body, it ran its long, hairy snout (or should I say conical mouth) across and around an anthill. Astonishingly, ants could not run far without said aardvark spying an ant’s path and a swift gurgitation of an ant colony was an obiligato within two blinks of a visionary facial body part.  Not knowing if this living abnormality had a cutting or chopping apparatus at the top of his torso, I quickly ran away from him, and along the way I was thinking “What in this world is that?” To this day, an aardvark has not shown its form to my visionary facial parts again.
Shanda
PS.  Not found in a regular dictionary, “obiligato” is in a dictionary for doing crosswords

[Hotrock]

Top notch Shanda!

Brilliant in fact.

(I almost... almost, hold guilty contrition as no humour for I to point to you a bonus digit.    :

Point out any I miss too if you will.

[Shanda]

Good going, Hotrock. 

You do know how to do this without difficulty, Hotrock. Strain on the brain, I say.  Looking back, my PS should say "common" dictionary as I had first thought so as not to carry an avoidable word mark.

Thank you for your kind words about my story.

Shanda

[Hotrock]

I don't know about 'without difficulty'. I wrack my brains for the right word but I find it fun.
Anything to hold funcionality of said organ.

I did not notice the 'regular'  It was the word 'house' that stood out at I. 

Damn fine go though m'lady.   

[The Ninja King, Cobra Angels]

*shock and awe written all over face* Wow Shanda. . . .wow.

[Shanda]

Thank you, Ninja,
 Nearly all the credit should go to the reference books I used. You should try this challenge. It can put a real strain on your brain but it is worth doing when you think you cannot do it.

I hate to admit this, but a good challenge is a temptation I cannot avoid.

Shanda

[sharky]

Wonderfully written Shanda, even if you did slip one 'the' in near the end...:-)

That would have taken me ages and not been half so cleverly done...bravo x

James.

[Shanda]

Thank you, Sharky.

Hotrock seems to have an easier time writing without an "e" than I do.

I'm glad to see you are back.  Welcome back.

Shanda

[Hotrock]

I'd like to share my secret Shanda, I use reference books too but my favourite is called 'Flip Dictionary' by Barbara Ann Kipfer, Ph.D. ISBN 1-58297-140-4

It lists alternative words for just about anything and I highly recommend it for any writer. Probably the best Christmas gift I ever recieved.

[Hotrock]

As grains of sand slowly built into a conical pyramid, Hotrock began to know what fright was.
It was illogical but common too, found in most situations.
It was a sound similar to that of sand rubbing against sand, grain upon grain, on and on, annoyingly constant.

It is a natural law that sand sounds thus on occasions such as this,
Built upon foundations of sand, all pyramids, though always constant, cannot aim to lay claim to solidarity.
It may not form into anything solid.
Not without aid from far away.
Not from within this world and that's a fact.
His world is cold and loud and living with this constant, rasping, tortuously shushing sound at all hours of day and night is painful but of no actual worth.

Claiming a summit of any sand pyramid is an aim that no amount of wisdom may attain... though many try.
This was always a natural, sorrowful strain on poor Hotrock.
His goal was almost spiritual but his durability at trying did him no good at all.
Hotrock always had to attain a summit but always his foot would slip and his body would fall again and again to a quick conclusion at a sandy bottom.
It was, is, his lot.
This is why Hotrock is Hotrock, climbing and falling, counting his falling as similar in count to all grains of sand in any sandy pyramid.
 
Landing hard always hurt but what option was on show?
Stand up, dust off any sand and try again.
That all any of us can do though isn't it?
Try, try and try again?

[Sir Breakfast]

Si, Oui, Ja.  Magic Stuff Rockman

[Shanda]

Alas,  I stand afar, holding my books, and bid bon noir to this hard trial and to Hotrock, victor of this pursuit for words and story. Strain upon my brain, I cannot think  to try again. Thinking much but saying nothing , I turn quickly away from this alluring bait. A trap is waiting for all who cannot withstand a bid to join in. Hours may go by but  a sigh is all that is born.

Congratulations, Hotrock. You win this quiz again and again. A thousand applauds and a standing ovation for you.

Shanda

[Hotrock]

There are neither winners nor losers Shanda.
The idea was to challenge the mind, stretch ourselves and find for ourselves words that might not ordinarily be used in every-day writing.
Hopefully you enjoyed the challenge and, in doing so, encouraged others to get involved in this or future challengers.
Rob

[Sir Breakfast]

Gad! why am I too lazy to try?

[Hotrock]

Give it a go Al,
Broaden your vocabulary a little more. (Not to say you're vocabulary can by any means be concidered as narrow)
I'm surprised this was not something you'd love to sink your teeth into.

go on... you know you want to! 

[Sir Breakfast]

er, the above was a mild attempt at de-echoing a sentence.

de-echoing -  means taking the  letter 'e' , or in phonetic lingo, 'echo', out .

Summat akin to this , know what I'm on about? - flippin' 'arry, it ain't so 'ard, all ya gotta do is  think about it and go for it. 

[Moliz]

I misread the challenge. I assumed we could omit any vowel. My bad. I omitted the 'i'.
I agree, Shanda, Hotrock tops the billing.


Today, we attended a baby shower. The shower wasn't the soap and water type because the baby hasn't even been born yet and for guests to try and bathe the unborn could be a trauma for the mommy-to-be.
 Now, the baby shower can be called a mommy-to-be party. That's why we attend. Attendees all take the mommy-to-be presents for her soon-to-be-born baby. But all the neat presents doesn't take away from the fact that, at the baby showers, attendees are served strange food.

Let me elaborate.

Some of you, to be sure, have attended such showers. You probably took all manner of baby presents and showed your generous nature. Perhaps, at the ones you attend, you played games. My personal stance about shower games can be reduced to one word....ugh. Save the games for when alcohol can be served.

But, why the strange food? Let's take a look at the gorgeously decorated table. There we see the standard yellow and green colors. The plates are yellow or green. All of the décor echoes the green and yellow palette. Every component screams yellow and green. Does anyone really savor those ever present green and yellow small butter candy squares that melt on your tongue before you have a chance to chew them? Can you really get sated on munches of peanuts and the melt-on-your-tongue green and yellow squares? The peanuts make your mouth dry so, you don't get a cool cola or yummy sweet tea. You get some cold green brew. Oh, the brew wasn't actually brewed as the true sense of brewed means. Had the green brew actually been brewed, we wouldn't fuss as much. The green brew just means that four, seven or ten bottles of green stuff were all poured together and served. We never know what those four, seven or ten bottles held except they all held green stuff. But, does anyone really want green punch?

Then, should you be lucky, the hostess serves small thumb length morsels of bread covered by a green and yellow smeared combo of two, perhaps three strange parts of what, we don't know. But the thumb length bread sates better than the melt-on-your-tongue green and yellow squares. Why a whole segment of bread can't be served puzzles me. Take away the thumb length of bread and present to us a whole chunk of bread covered by some real meat and cheese.
How about some novelty and serve a whole damn hamburger or hot dog? How about some lasagna, tacos, any pasta ala al fredo? Poulet cordon bleu? Frogmore stew?  Steak, for heavens sake!
Then, throw out some bourbon on the rocks, fuzzy navels or juleps.
Should people know beforehand that they can expect that sort of food, you can betcha they would show up at the shower, arms full of much better presents for the unborn... and un-showered baby.

Better yet, just serve the alcohol. That way, the hostess won't have to prepare the strange yellow and green food that no one cares for, anyway, and guests shall go away full of fondness and esteem for the hostess.

Yeah, just serve booze.

moliz

[Hotrock]

Excellent ladies n gents. Thanks for taking up the challenge.

Would it be worthwhile making this a regular challenge using a different letter each time do you think?

Rob

[Sir Breakfast]

Yeah! I reckon.  'Cept we can't use 'i' this time - been done by M****z.

'z' and 'x' are other no-gos - this would be too easy - also, the murricans could change the 'ize' endings to 'ise' - So! Z and X, outski.

[Hotrock]

Well, perhaps we can use 'i' in a future challenge anyway. Mo plays by her own rules at the best of times and I daren't say anything. Maybe if we can get matron to give out her meds  a few hours earlier before she tackles the next one.

[Sir Breakfast]

Our Mo! the one we know and love! - not play by the rules. Nah! You must be thinking of MOrrie Bloggs - in Room 69.

Oh! btw, Matron has asked that we use her new title Director Of Nursing - she told me - over Rads - that the term matron is sooo Florence Nightingale.  We'd better 'cos she controls the jagged little  pills.

[Hotrock]

(pssst, Al. You can get them off the net at very reasonable prices so we should be ok for the jaggies, keep schtum though 'cos everyone will want in on the deal)