# Where did you learn that word? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 4, 2007, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733 "2007-06-04T18:22:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SiouxChief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@SiouxChief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiouxChief)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/1 "2007-06-04T18:22:30Z")
There are only a handful of words where I can remember _exactly_ when & where I learned the word. (Perhaps I’m in the minority here by only remembering a handful.) For example, I learned the word “caprice” while reading, “The Count of Monte Cristo”. “Bailiwick” I learned while reading Cliff Stoll’s, “The Cuckoo’s Egg”, and I learned the word “haver” from the Proclaimers’ song, “500 Miles”. So, which words do you specifically remember learning? It can be from a book, song, movie, or elsewhere as long as it’s a specific event. “High School English Class” doesn’t cut it. ---
**Author:** ![rucciface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@rucciface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rucciface)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/2 "2007-06-04T19:09:34Z")
I specifically remember my mother teaching what “disobeyed” meant. This was one day before I had started school and was in trouble with her for some reason. Me: “Why am I being punished?” Mom: “Because you disobeyed me, didn’t you?” Me: “I don’t know.” Mom: “You don’t know whether or not you disobeyed me?” Me: “No. I don’t know what disobeyed means.” Then the explanation. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/3 "2007-06-04T19:20:35Z")
I remember getting “cusp” from _Stranger in a Strange Land_. I also remember, at age 6, asking my parents what the word “phenomenon” meant. I didn’t understand the explanation, however. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/4 "2007-06-04T19:31:19Z")
Like the OP – and, I suspect, nearly every American who knows the word – I learned “haver” from The Proclaimers. I remember my grandfather, on a long car trip in his green Mercedes, explaining the meaning of “merge.” And I somehow made it all the way to 4th grade without ever hearing or reading “fuck.” I still remember the bathroom wall it was written on. Took me a little longer to work out the precise meaning, though. ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/5 "2007-06-04T19:50:36Z")
My grade 8 teacher made a big deal about his favourite word. The way he said that word was so compelling - it seemed something magical. We _had_ to look it up. After the build up, it was a bit of a disappointment to learn the meaning of the word “gossamer” But I never forgot it! ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/6 "2007-06-04T20:25:15Z")
I was working late one night (about midnight) and my wife called me to ask how to spell “egregious.” She was a court reporter, and an attorney had used it. She was looking it up under “A” in the dictionary. Another engineer knew the word, and now everyone in my family uses it regularly. I looked up the word “latigo” after hearing it in a Garth Brooks song. I’ve been riding horses since I was a kid and owned them for years, and never heard that word. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/7 "2007-06-04T20:45:58Z")
When I was an adult, “epicene” and “inchoate” in two of Isaac Asimov’s stories. Actually, I don’t remember EXACTLY which stories, but I do remember my surprise that I couldn’t infer what they meant from the context and I HAD to look them up. At the time and even now, I don’t remember the previous time that had happened. Since then, of course, I’ve had to look up many words. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/8 "2007-06-04T20:47:35Z")
\*Ennui \*- Paul Atreides uses it _Dune_. I had to look it up. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/9 "2007-06-04T20:48:04Z")
I always think of the phrase “non sequitur” at times like this. I learned it from Star Trek: TOS, on the episode about Nomad. :dubious: (aka Spock eyebrow smilie). I also always remember two words I learned from Simon and Garfunkle: desultory, and philippic, from [the song](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Simple_Desultory_Philippic_(Or_How_I_Was_Robert_McNamara'd_Into_Submission)). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/10 "2007-06-04T20:52:46Z")
I got “lambent”, “argent”, and “puissance” all from the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen Donaldson. He used those a _lot_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/11 "2007-06-04T20:53:14Z")
“Soporific” – used in a diatribe by Barbara Feldon’s hippie character in an episode of (IIRC) **the Name of the Game**. "Sop-o-rific! The world has eaten too much lettuce, and now it’s soporific!" I had to look it up after that. October 2, 1970,. according to iMDB: > **["The Name of the Game" Cynthia Is Alive and Living in Avalon (TV Episode 1970)...](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0656991/)** > > 1h 14m | TV-PG ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/12 "2007-06-04T21:01:48Z")
[QUOTE=rowrrbazzle] When I was an adult, “epicene” and “inchoate” in two of Isaac Asimov’s stories. [/QUOTE] I remember looking up “epicene” while reading Robert Anton Wilson’s _Schrödinger’s Cat_ trilogy, in 1988. In another thread I was reminded of “ineluctable,” which I first stumbled upon along Sandymount strand, erm - in James Joyce’s _Ulysses._ “Anamnesis.” Philip K. Dick’s _The Divine Invasion._ “Lordosis.” I learned this word from an ex-girlfriend who was an enthusiastic runner. She cited a study that showed that mice that ran in a wheel for extended periods of time tended towards lordosis, which she explained meant increased libido. I found it was an interesting word, and looked it up immediately. It actually means “curvature of the spine.” I could never persuade her of that, and she kept bragging about her “total lordosis.” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Dunawake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dunawake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunawake)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/13 "2007-06-04T21:07:57Z")
I learned the word “shibboleth” early on here at the Dope in some thread on vocabulary. Any legitimate word that sounds like it came out an H.P. Lovecraft story is awesome by me 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2007, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/14 "2007-06-04T22:17:32Z")
Not a word, but a phrase: When I was in the fifth grade (ca. 1978), our teacher was reading [_Banner in the Sky,_](http://www.amazon.com/Banner-Sky-James-Ramsey-Ullman/dp/0064470482) a book about a kid climbing the Citadel in the Alps, aloud to the class. At one point the kids stops “to relieve himself.” Mr. D stopped to point out that that was a subtle way to say that he stopped to take a piss. (OK, so Mr. D didn’t actually say “take a piss,” but you gather my meaning.) I learned “crackpot” from Jean Merrill’s [_The Pushcart War,_](http://www.amazon.com/Pushcart-War-Jean-Merrill/dp/0440471478/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-7253962-5865548?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180995250&sr=1-2) still a favorite of Mr. S’s and mine for personal reasons. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/15 "2007-06-05T00:54:16Z")
I told this girl in second grade that I despised her, simply because I liked the way the word “despise” sounded. After she told, the teacher basically said to me, “That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/16 "2007-06-05T02:50:40Z")
_Vaginal_. My younger sister musta had a yeast infection or something. But I remember picking up her prescription bottle and trying to pronounce the word by sounding it out. I might have been 14 or so. Hey! This was 1958. We didn’t know much back then. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/17 "2007-06-05T03:04:31Z")
[QUOTE=E. Thorp] Like the OP – and, I suspect, nearly every American who knows the word – I learned “haver” from The Proclaimers. I remember my grandfather, on a long car trip in his green Mercedes, explaining the meaning of “merge.” And I somehow made it all the way to 4th grade without ever hearing or reading “fuck.” I still remember the bathroom wall it was written on. Took me a little longer to work out the precise meaning, though. [/QUOTE] I was a sheltered child and remember very, very clearly reading “shit” on a bathroom wall in third grade. It was written in purple crayon. We all got a big lecture on writing dirty words, but I didn’t even know what it was! I learned “sodomized” and “orgasm” from _The Stand_ when I was maybe eleven or twelve. Do you have any idea how hard it is to figure out what those words mean from the dictionary? Like everybody else in the world, I got words like “carious”, “telic”, “crepitation”, and “etoliated” from Stephen R. Donaldson. Man does love his funny little words. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/18 "2007-06-05T03:12:52Z")
I learned “supercallifragilisticexpialidocious” from _Mary Poppins._ ---
**Author:** ![Mbossa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Mbossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mbossa)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/19 "2007-06-05T04:35:38Z")
I learned some of the more ‘technical’ terms for various sexual acts by looking up dirty words in the dictionary and reading their definitions. ‘Coitus’, ‘fellatio’ and ‘cunnilingus’ fall squarely in this category. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2007, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733/20 "2007-06-05T13:40:59Z")
‘jejune’ from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-you-learn-that-word/406733.md?page=2)