I’m sure you’re familiar with this phenomenon. . . You read or hear a word that’s brand new to you–in however many decades you’ve been alive, you’re pretty darn sure that you’ve never been exposed to that word. You look it up in your dictionary, roll it over your tongue a few times, and prepare to use it in everyday conversation so that you sound all smart and cultured and obscure.
But then the word pops up everywhere. Isn’t that odd? It evaded your radar for all of your literate life, and now you can’t get away from it!
My latest experience with this was “empyrean.” It means the firmament, the celestial sphere. I first came across it in Oliver Sacks’ Island of the Colorblind. Then it popped up in the very next book I read, Two Moons by Thomas Mallon. And today it appeared on the A Word A Day mailing list!
Isn’t that odd!?