I was talking with a colleague about something and found myself saying, “Well, if that’s true it would obviate the work we did earlier.”
While speaking the sentence I hesitated before using the word ‘obviate’. It seemed right for what I was trying to express, and my colleague seemed to understand. But as I walked away from the conversation I wondered… did I make that word up? Obviate? I’ve never used that word before and can’t remember ever hearing it. I looked it up and found I has used it correctly, but I can’t for the life of me remember being exposed to this word before.
Yes, but I can’t remember the word now. All I remember is when we were going over back-formations in Modern English Grammar in undergrad, I had an example of a time I had back-formed a “new” word only to find out later that it was a perfectly cromulent word all the time.
This happens to every human being who speaks, with almost all language he or she acquires.
How do you define “knowing” a word? On average we are exposed to lexicon seven to nine times in meaningful contexts (either as speech or in print) before we produce it accurately. Then we “know” the word, and just use it. That’s what happens with 97% of your lexicon, and obviate was just one example that you were conscious of when it happened (though you don’t remember the exposure).
What you are describing is just the basic process of virtually all language acquisition.
Hmm, I guess it surprised me because I don’t recall it ever happening before. I’m a writer and have always had a strong vocabulary. This particular feeling of “losing” a word and then remembering it again was completely new to me.
I pull a lot of words I learned back in med school out of my head after having not used them or even thought of them for decades. And usually correctly, too.
I did once improperly use the word scybalous instead of what I meant, which was scabrous. A red face on my part, and lotsa laffs all around resulted that day, let me tell you!
I had a room-mate (mid-1970’s) who was fond of the word “humongous”, which I had never otherwise heard (at the time). Occasionally, though, I began to see and hear the word used by others.
My room-mate mentioned that once too (that he had begun to see the word around), and expressed surprise at this. He said he thought he had made it up himself.
Sometimes I suddenly know the perfect word for a situation, but I don’t know how to pronounce it because I learned it from reading and have never actually heard it spoken.
Once a friend loaned me a relaxation tape, and I told them I found it “twee” (I do know how to pronounce that). I’d never used the word before in my life and am not comfortable with it, but my friend seemed to know what I meant.
I observed this type of word acquisition as a young thing trying to grasp what existentialism was all about. The concept seemed to be just out of reach until the day I described something as existential. I think we just don’t notice with most of the time with words that have easier meanings (or that we remember having heard before we use them).
The president of the company I work for sent an email in which he mentioned the “erstwhile host” of an event that hadn’t even happened yet. “Erstwhile” sounds like a fancy compliment but it is nothing of the sort. I wonder how often he uses it in this manner.
Yesterday, one of my cousins mentioned her erstwhile ex-girlfriend. I thought about pointing out that an erstwhile ex-girlfriend would necessarily be her CURRENT girlfriend, but since she was explaining why she carries a handgun everywhere I opted to forbear.
I just assumed it pronounces like it spells.