My son says I’m obsessed with the game, Words With Friends (game name: SemicolonSherry). I wouldn’t put it quite that strongly, but I do have about twelve games going on my phone. My excuses are multitudinous:

I keep my brain supple and exercise those brain cells that I still have left.

I connect with people from all over the country, and that’s fun.

I learn new words, even if some of them such as “za” and “hin” and “exine” are only minimally useful.

I did learn a useful word last week: pavid means fearful or timid. Julius Caesar did not consider himself to be pavid.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
~William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”, Act 2 scene 2

Betsy Bee, my twelve year old, decided to memorize this quotation from Julius Caesar for her Shakepeare passage for this month. She, too, is not pavid, although she does say that Shakespeare uses too many “weird words.”

I like “pavid” as an alternative synonym for afraid because it reminds me of pale and of quaking. Of course, I can only use some of these words in writing where people can look them up if they don’t know the meaning. To use the word pavid in conversation would be pretentious. And there’s always Words With Friends.