They say a young child learns something like what, 20+ words a day? (no cite for that but the point is it’s a lot)
I have noted that my vocabulary’s rate of growth has decreased a good bit since then. But every once in a while, you still get that “I just learned a new word!” buzz, even when you’re 52 years old (which I’m not. But I know it will continue happening even then).
So what new word have you learned recently? For me, it was about 5 minutes ago, and it was here on the Dope kudos to Pazu (see post #17 for usage), that I learned the word “skint” - meaning penniless. Upon looking it up in Merriam-Webster’s I also learned it was chiefly British, so not a real word, but still pretty cool.
(Please include some definition and/or usage so the yet-unenlightened among us can also benefit from your discovery)
I’m embarrassed to say that yesterday was when I finally looked up the definition of ubiquitous. Which is “existing or being everywhere at the same time : constantly encountered : WIDESPREAD <a ubiquitous fashion>.”
Honestly, who uses the word “ubiquity” in everyday conversation? Not I, apparently.
Oricess, from a spingears post in GD.
I looked it up, and it turns out to be a typo, for process, and sometimes orifice.
It does show up in some interesting sentences though:
Someone told me to “shut my lentiginous butt up” after I’d teased them about using hippopotomonstrousesquipedalian words all the time. I had to go look it up before I could come up with a comeback.
I was shocked when I found myself learning several new four-letter words in the span of two months. And I don’t mean dirty ones. But these aren’t difficult words, just, strangely, ones I’d never come across before:
I subscribe to Word of the Day from yourDictionary.com. Every once in a while, there’s a real doozy, like turdiform, which means shaped like a thrush. Also turdoid and turdine.
Can’t you just imagine saying to someone, “I am enchanted by your turdine voice.”
AARGH! My delight in such a scatological word is disgustingly puerile.
I’m sure I must have heard it before, god knows I’ve read enough on related subjects. Its meaning is intuited easily enough; I just don’t recall it ever coming up before.
[digression follows]
There’s a Chinese fella I work with who asked me how to pronounce it today. I’ve been helping with his English, which is kind of funny because (apart from my humble self) I believe he has the largest English vocabulary of anyone in the workplace – it’s just that his grammar is a little rough and his pronounciation is very poor. (If our manager knew how much time we spent talking about dipthongs, fricatives, and sibilants, he’d probably pitch a fit.)
Anyway, after noticing how much emphasis his vocabulary list places on hard sciences and arcane academics, I finally came out and asked him plainly what his background was. Turns out he has a phD in physics and worked as a satellite engineer before coming to Canada. And people think that place is beneath me! :smack:
Anyone interested in the English language should subscribe to A Word A Day, IMO. The compiler, Anu Garg, has a lovely gentle intelligence that I really like.
I have a fairly large vocab but there’d be about one a week he sends out that is new to me. Todays is Chaffer, yesterday’s was Guttle.
