Strange things that some words make you think of

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In addition to the recognized connotations of words that poets seem to rely on for conveying more than they say, I’m convinced there are non-standard connotations to words that we may hold for no special reason but which are there nevertheless. Many, if not most, of these “personalized connotations” probably relate to individual experiences we may not recall in any significant detail, but we can suppose they matter if only because the word in question will cause the connotation in question to appear.

If that’s not vague enough, here are a few examples that occur for me:

  1. practice – I picture me sitting at a piano instead of being outside playing ball
  2. priggish – I see a pig doing something fussy
  3. quandary – I think of quicksand or a quagmire, used as a boundary
  4. cellar door – I recall somebody (not a native English speaker) saying that that’s the most beautifully euphonious phrase in the language, at the same time as seeing a cruddy wooden door leading to a root cellar or something dank and musty
  5. principle, principal – I visualize the man who was Principal of the grammar school I went to

What about you? I realize this is a golden opportunity to “be cute” but it would be nice if your words are actually things that make you think of unusual stuff. It’s impossible to police this, but the Honor System light is on.

Try to be immediate and precise in the first thing that comes to mind for:

  1. Jeopardize
  2. Fraction
  3. Gobble
  4. Intermediate
  5. Zephyr
  6. Lieutenant
  7. Mysterious
  8. Comfort
  9. Hangar
2
  1. Jeopardize-Alex Trebek
  2. Fraction-Algebra 2
  3. Gobble-Small green gobli with a spear
  4. Intermediate-I got nothing
  5. Zephyr-Flying rocket train
  6. Lieutenant-pants
  7. Mysterious-Rikimaru from the Tenchu games
  8. Comfort-Some military fort that I can’t recall enough about
  9. Hangar-18, I saw too much

Nothing cool, man, I’m boring

3

1) Jeopardize- To be stumped with a trivia question.
2) Fraction- What happens when you break a bone
3) Gobble- Voraciously or gluttonously eating a turkey
4) Intermediate- Not easy but not hard, either
5) Zephyr- A musical instrument (thinking of a zither)
6) Lieutenant- Not quite the highest-ranking officer in the army
7) Mysterious- Scooby Doo plot
8) Comfort- A soft blanket
9) Hangar- Where airplanes are parked (As a kid I used to think they hung the airplanes on hooks inside of a hangar, hence the name.)

4
  1. priggish – Hmm. I picture a schoolmarm with her nose up in a piggish position.
  2. Jeopardize - black. the game show
  3. Fraction - chunks of ice breaking off each other
  4. Gobble - turkey neck jiggling
  5. Intermediate - wide yellow line with a break in the middle
  6. Zephyr - ice blue waves of air, like that wind god blowing
  7. Lieutenant - orange. square.
  8. Mysterious - gray. cloudy
  9. Comfort - pink. puffy. cottony softness
  10. Hangar - literal picture of a hangar from up in the air and to the side.