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On a Horse and a Prayer

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Later we call O'Brien to bask in his reflected glory. "The problem with that colt last year, he started like gangbusters but then it was like a teenage kid. He hit a period of dumbness," the owner imparts. "He'd be out there clowning around, looking at the people. Sometimes it takes four or five years for a horse to figure out what he's doing out there."

O'Brien watched the race from home, via satellite. He doesn't get out to Fairmount much; at age 70 he no longer trusts his eyes behind the wheel — and besides, being the track's perennial winningest owner brings out, as he puts it, "all the mooches and the sponges." Too many aggravating interruptions for a man who remains a horseracing purist.

"I love the sport," says O'Brien. "I still get pumped."

Unreal too.

Meaning Machine

Last year St. Louis participated in the inaugural National Vocabulary Championship. The local winner, Noah Berman, took away a $5,000 deposit to a college savings plan and a trip to the finals, which took place last week in New York City.

Berman, a fifteen-year-old sophomore at Metro High School, didn't win the grand prize of a $40,000 savings-plan deposit, but he was gracious enough to speak with Unreal upon his return.

Unreal: So you're a voracious reader. What kind of stuff do you like?

Noah Berman: Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett. I tend to read satirical, funny stuff.

If you had to use only one word to describe New York, what would it be?

I don't know... Speechless? Ineffable?

What does that mean?

That it was impossible to describe.

Do you remember any really unusual words that came up in the competition?

The whole thing was kind of a blur. But I remember one question where they gave us a bunch of words and we had to pick out the only word that was not based on the name of a person. Dunce is apparently actually somebody's last name.

There was a Mr. Dunce? How on earth do they know that?

Yeah, I know.

All right, here's a question for you: How many words are in the English language?

5,000?

Actually, over 500,000! But most people only know about 15,000.

Vocabulary's not really that important anymore. People can get a lot done with very few words.

ANSWERS

1) D (patron saint of bar staffs)

2) B (patron saint of pain relief)

3) A (patron saint of insanity and unattractive people)

4) C (patron saint against lost keys)

5) E (patron saint of hangovers)

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