It's embarrassing.
The same thing happens now online with all these lawyers all over the place except the index cards are mere files and now they never get looked at anymore as the cards did once they're typed, and not handwritten as before. The file on the desktop titled "words" has ... oh, only 1,300 files. Seemed like more than that.
Here's your chance to prove to yourself how much smarter you are than I.
These are the "a" words encountered in English reading. Indented means I'm embarrassed to show them, but there they are. You're going to think, what a dummkopf. The unindented asterisks I still don't know very well and do not use those words for thinking. Here goes.
Pop quiz.
*aut inveniam viam aut faciam
* abattoir
* abject
* absolve
* absquatulate
* abstemious
* abstruse
* acedia
* ad finem
* addlepated
* adduce
* adianoeta
* adumbrated
* advertorial
* Aebleskiver
* agglutination
* agnomen
* agonal
* arorism
* ajouré
* Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
* alluvion
* alopecic
* Amalek
* Amanuensis
* ambit
* amduat
* Amicus Curiae
* amour propre
* amyloid plaques
* anacoluthon
* analyte
* anaphora
* anaphore
* anatid
* anatine
* andante
* animadversion
* annuity
* anodyne
*anole
*anomic
*anomie
* anorak
* anosma
* Anosognosia
* antinomian
* antinomy
* aperçus
* aphorism
* aphotic
* apologia
* apophasis
* aporia
*apotheosis
* apotropaic
* apparatchik
* apposition
* approbation
* aprioristic
* arancini (little oranges) (filled rice balls)
* Arbalist
* architectonic
* architrave
* archon
* argent
* argumentum ad misericordiam
* arpeggio
* arriviste
* asceticism
* aspergic
* assortative
* aston
* asymptote
* attainder
* au fait
* auf wiedersehen
* auteur
* auto-da-fé
* Autochthon
* autogyro
* autophagy
* autotroph
* ave ataque vale
* avout