[QUOTE=Nature’s Call]
etoliate: ???
[/QUOTE]
If you check under the correct spelling, etiolate, you get this: :
1 : to bleach and alter the natural development of (a green plant) by excluding sunlight
2 a : to make pale b : to deprive of natural vigor : make feeble
[QUOTE=Aioua]
It’s almost impossible to actually use in a non-technical sentence. My favorite use (which I basically made up) is “This reciprocal saw reciprocates with greater reciprocity than the old model.”
[/QUOTE]
Ask any of the chickies in my pen
They’ll tell you I’m the biggest mother hen
I love 'em all and all of them love me
Because the system works
The system called reciprocity…
[QUOTE=Aioua]
Reciprocity. Learned form one of my favorite english teachers who, while we were all writing short stories or something (him included), exclaimed out loud that he couldn’t remember the word and tried to give us a definition. But it is such an akward word that he could barely define it–and none of us knew it anyway. He came in the next day and prouldy spelt out reciprocity on the board.
Oddly enough, I still have a hard time remembering the word. It usually goes like “what’s that word that’s so hard to remeber? … ah! I can’t remember!”
It’s almost impossible to actually use in a non-technical sentence. My favorite use (which I basically made up) is “This reciprocal saw reciprocates with greater reciprocity than the old model.”
[/QUOTE]
That word doesn’t mean what you think it means. Here’s how you use it:
Hey, I can get into this zoo with my membership card from the other zoo at home. The two of them have reciprocity.
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
That word doesn’t mean what you think it means. Here’s how you use it:
Hey, I can get into this zoo with my membership card from the other zoo at home. The two of them have reciprocity.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I admit the way I used it is totally garbage. But words are more fun if you tear them apart and re-define them. I think my teacher used it along the lines of “the receprocity of their relationship was called into serious doubt.”
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
When I was 11 or so I called another boy a “slut” once, not knowing what it meant but knowing it was an insult, and was gently corrected by my mom.
Lightray, I looked up and learned “puissance” after reading it in Thomas Berger’s great Arthurian novel Arthur Rex in high school. Also learned “recreant,” “catamite” and “zounds” from that book.
I read a lot as a kid and often knew a word before I knew its pronunciation. For instance, I said “despot” with a silent “t” (like “depot,” I reasoned) before being set right.
[/QUOTE]
Elendil’s Heir: when I was 14 or 15 I called my sister a slut intending only to insult her, not call her virtue into question. I picked up the word from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories… There were a great many slang terms, curse words, and pejoratives that I was not exposed to until my mid teens.
I didn’t learn any new words from Thomas Berger, but in my late twenties I laughed myself silly reading about six Berger novels in a row. Thanks for jogging my memory. I just found Vital Parts on my bookshelf. Now I have something to read on the bus tomorrow.
I pronounced grotesque “grot-esk-cue” until age 12 when I read X-men #41 . The villain of the month assumed the name Grotesk after being called grotesque by the Beast (irony unintended, I think).
12 year old NJ_Kef: “Dad, don’t hit those people crossing the street.”
Aunt Helen: “They’re called pedestrians.”
NJ_Kef: “Dad, don’t hit the pedestrians.”
12 year old NJ_Kef: “Look at that neat graveyard.”
Aunt Helen: “Don’t say graveyard. It’s a cemetery.”
NJ_Kef has spent the rest of his life wondering what distinguishes a graveyard from a cemetery. Sometimes he thinks he knows. Sometimes he’s still 12 years old.
I learned the word “haver” from the OP. I can’t wait to use it! Thanks, I owe you one!
I called my cat a “silly slut” once when I was a kid. I thought I was making up a word, like calling him a cutie wootie or something. Boy did I get into massive trouble for that. Lots of yelling and making me feel like utter crap 
Personally I thought it was overkill seeing that I didn’t even know it was a real word.
I read that one. I mentally labelled it the “homophobic Arthur book”, because it used the phrase “commit foul buggery” enough times to give me the giggles. Seriously, it was REALLY obsessed with gay sex.
Theological Seminary.
In a compilation of old Peanuts cartoons, during a baseball game, Charlie Brown and Lucy and maybe Linus and Schroeder get into what I took to be an intellectual discussion, and Charlie Brown said something about his game turning into a theological seminary.
I used the term with my dad, thinking it meant something like ‘think tank,’ not realizing what ‘theological’ meant, and he said something about my wanting to be a priest. I was mortified that I had misunderstood the term, but I tried to bluff my way out of it.
[QUOTE=Nature’s Call]
catamite: a boy kept for unnatural purposes
[/QUOTE]
Ack. I don’t remember where I read that one, but I distinctly remember looking it up in the dictionary (while reading waaaay past my grade level) and getting almost exactly that definition. Which is of absolutely no use in figuring out what a catamite is or does or is for.
I mean, really, “unnatural purposes”? Is he being used to add artificial colorings and flavors to snack-foods? Employed as a topiary-gardener? What???
I was young enough that I just assumed that it had something to do with bad things happening to cats – of which, I approved, naturally – and went on reading. Years later I stumbled across it again in a context that explained everything, and had an “oooooh!” moment.
I learned “detumescently” from an Ebert review. It was before his new website was up - I read it in his book I Hated, Hated HATED This Movie - so that puts me learning it probably right after Christmas 2000.
“Pelvic splanchnic ganglion”: Futurama.
I will be making further word contributions, but I hope the OP doesn’t mind the following snippet:
The talking species/
We’re nothing by an aberration, an error of nature/
What must the stones think of us?
from History of a Disturbance, by Steven Millhauser.
[QUOTE=SiouxChief]
“Bailiwick” I learned while reading Cliff Stoll’s, “The Cuckoo’s Egg”
[/QUOTE]
I learned “bailiwick” after reading it in America: The Book and having to run off and look it up immediately. It was probably only the fifth or so time since I was ten that I couldn’t figure out the meaning from the context, excluding technical jargon in scientific journals and such. Most humbling.
bluethree, you should probably let your dad know that pulchritudinous and resplendent don’t mean pretty much the same thing. Or the same thing at all, really.
For me, that one was from a Sherlock Holmes story. The story ends with Watson praising Holmes’ good work, and he replies “It spares me from ennui.”.
A couple more: I only learned the word “Apotheosis” a few years ago, from the title of a Babylon 5 episode. It’s the Greek equivalent of “deification”.
And back in 9th grade English class, the teacher drew a punctuation mark on the board, consisting of an exclamation point superimposed upon a question mark, and told the class that he would give an automatic A to any student who could tell him that mark’s name within five days. Except it was the Thursday before a long weekend, so what he really meant was “tomorrow”. Well, I stopped after class to see if I could have that offer in writing, and he replied “I’m a brother, would I lie to you?”. That evening, through meticulous research and more than a bit of luck, I was able to discover that that glyph was called an interrobang. I returned to school the next day, and turned in a brief report detailing my discovery, whereupon the teacher laughed at me and said that surely, I couldn’t have thought he was serious.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
I learned “bailiwick” after reading it in America: The Book and having to run off and look it up immediately. It was probably only the fifth or so time since I was ten that I couldn’t figure out the meaning from the context, excluding technical jargon in scientific journals and such. Most humbling.
bluethree, you should probably let your dad know that pulchritudinous and resplendent don’t mean pretty much the same thing. Or the same thing at all, really.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I just used those two words as an example. I don’t remember which words we ever asked Dad about. And I used Roget’s online thesaurus to find a synonym for ‘beautiful’ that I probably wouldn’t have known as a child, thus ‘resplendent,’ which it lists, along with ‘pulchritudinous.’
[QUOTE=Chronos]
For me, that one was from a Sherlock Holmes story. The story ends with Watson praising Holmes’ good work, and he replies “It spares me from ennui.”.
A couple more: I only learned the word “Apotheosis” a few years ago, from the title of a Babylon 5 episode. It’s the Greek equivalent of “deification”.
And back in 9th grade English class, the teacher drew a punctuation mark on the board, consisting of an exclamation point superimposed upon a question mark, and told the class that he would give an automatic A to any student who could tell him that mark’s name within five days. Except it was the Thursday before a long weekend, so what he really meant was “tomorrow”. Well, I stopped after class to see if I could have that offer in writing, and he replied “I’m a brother, would I lie to you?”. That evening, through meticulous research and more than a bit of luck, I was able to discover that that glyph was called an interrobang. I returned to school the next day, and turned in a brief report detailing my discovery, whereupon the teacher laughed at me and said that surely, I couldn’t have thought he was serious.
[/QUOTE]
I hope you manned up and you and your potnas stepped to that brother real quicklike. Daps on dat if ya did.
Though I talk myself to read at age 4, I resisted all attempts to teach me to write. Then I saw a book called “Diary” in a store. It had blank pages. I asked my brother why. He explained the idea to me.
I learned to write cursive that day, and have kept a daily diary ever since.
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas]
Though I **talk ** myself to read at age 4, I resisted all attempts to teach me to write. Then I saw a book called “Diary” in a store. It had blank pages. I asked my brother why. He explained the idea to me.
I learned to write cursive that day, and have kept a daily diary ever since.
[/QUOTE]
Apparently you didn’t learn to write, though, until much, much later in life. 
subdural
haemotoma
epithelial
All from CSI!
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
“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!"
[/QUOTE]
Now for bonus points - who knows what she was (mis-)quoting?
I learned the word ‘copacetic’ on this board
Hematoma. I was passing through the break room once and overheard some chick wound up in a total Southern Gothic Drama moment about how some guy had given her, “…a H-E-E-E-E-matoma! A freaking H-E-E-E-E-E-E-matoma!” I thought to myself - if it’s a bad thing, he didn’t give her enough and if it’s a good thing I’m glad he cut her off. Curiosity got the better of me so I looked it up. And I still thought she needed more of them.
No, I don’t condone physical violence against anyone, but if you had heard this whiner! :rolleyes: