Show & Tell

In kindergarten the kids have show & tell each week, and they have to choose a thing to show based upon the letter it starts with, so this week was x or y. (Usually it’s just one letter, but those are a bit tougher for kids.) In the interest of helping future generations, I offer up this useful computer tip:

  egrep -i '^[xy].*' /usr/share/dict/words

As long as you’ve got a whole bunch of words in /usr/share/dict/words (and I do on Mac OS X) you should get a nice list of words that start with x or y. Here are a few favorites:

• xenon
• xenyl
• xylographer
• xylyl
• yaffle
• yeldrock
• yis
• yite
• yoldrin
• yokel
• youngun
• younker
• youze
• yox
• ytterbium
• yttrocolumbite
• yurt

Please keep in mind it may not be possible, ethical, or even legal to bring some of these things to school. Worth noting is that at least three of those words mean “yellow-hammer” and the word “youze” is not the same as the one used in the phrase “youze guys” made popular in certain parts of the US.