Writing about the past I have to continually remind myself that people had much bigger vocabularies. They spoke in long, full sentences. My great aunt would never have said “You know” or “like” or described something as “that thing”. They rarely used contractions. I will, not I’ll. I cannot, not I can’t. They read extensively and they used all those words when they spoke. I suppose they had more time. Their lives weren’t as rushed.
I have always considered that I am an educated person and I have a good vocabulary. However I’ve noticed it shrinking recently. Where did I put that thing? John asks. What thing? You know, that thing we brought back from thewhatsit store. We’ll be down to caveman grunts soon!
So….I have recently subscribed to something called Word Genius. It gives me a new word of the day and I’m embarrassed to say that so far I have known none of them!
Here are some from the past few days:
Esurient. Do you know what it means? Ten points if you do. It means hungry.
Lambent. It means glowing softly.
Otiose. It means useless, pointless.
Gibbous. It means convex, bulgy. A gibbous moon.
Sobriquet… this I was familiar with but don’t think I had ever used it in conversation. It means a familiar form of ones name or a nickname. Lady Georgiana’s sobriquet is Georgie and her brother’s is Binky.
(Actually after the first week I have known most of them so I'm not quite as hopeless as I thought)
I have been surprised throughout my life that I have come across new words to me and have had to add them to my vocabulary. I didn’t know what Nemesis was until I read Agatha Christie.
I knew about zenith but didn’t realize its opposite was a nadir.
Juggernaut was outside my vocabulary until large trucks in England were referred to by that name.
And an ombudsman? What the heck was that when I first read of it in the newspaper. But where on earth did it come from?
Then there are words that I’m always confused about because they sound like the opposite of what they really mean:
Bucolic. Doesn’t that sound like something nasty? A disease? And yet it means an idyllic country setting, doesn’t it?
Sanguine: another word that sounds nasty. Something to do with a vampire!
So DEAR REDS do you have large vocabularies? Are you often coming across words you don’t know? And did you know the meaning of those words I shared from Word Genius?
JENN McKINLAY: Well, I thought my vocabulary was pretty good. I knew lambent and sobriquet, but otiose? That's a new one and I love it. So thank you for sharing that, Rhys! I'll try not to wear it out. My mother was a librarian so we were a wordy house. You could never just get a definition out of the woman. It was always a big production to go to the dictionary and look stuff up. Small wonder I became a librarian, too. Back when the NYT Book Review was a weighty insert worth an entire Sunday afternoon, I used to write down any words used in the articles that I didn't know. By the end of the year, I had quite the vocab list. And now I must be off to go sign up for Word Genius!
LUCY BURDETTE: We have the same conversation over and over Rhys. Do you know where that thing is? one of us asks. Use your nouns, John will often say. (Can you see me sticking my tongue out?) My theory is that we have so much stuffed into our heads by now that it takes a while for the brain to grind through and find the right word. But even so I'm going to check out Word Genius too...
HALLIE EPHRON: I frequently trip over unknown words in The New Yorker and in The New York Times. The Times has printed lists of their most frequently looked-up words. One year, the #1 most looked up word: panegyric. #2: immiscible. I don't know what either one means. Most of the rest of the words on their list I know: churlish, risible, anathema... The word I most often think means the opposite of what it does: nonplussed. Also ingenuous.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Agrarian sounds like it shouldn't mean that, right? I think it should mean angry all the time. Riparian, too. It should be someone in the Rotary Club. I knew most of those Rhys, but I don't use them. (Except for sanguine, which I use all the time, weirdly.) They're like, available words, but I hardly take them out of the cabinet. Knowing them and using them are so different! And when a word sticks out, is that ..a good thing? Noisome is a frustrating one--and enervate. They should just change the meanings. I found an old notebook I had from collage and I had kept a vocabulary list for myself. One of the exotic words was "ecology." Ah, times do change.
And the noun-loss disease? Seriously, I am so worried about it that I actively try to avoid it.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys! I am now hooked on Word Genius! I played Daily Word until I got to one that completely stumped me--Resfeber! I did guess the correct answer, but it was only through process of elimination. Resfeber is the feeling of excitement before a trip or journey. Who knew? It's a Swedish word, because there is no English word that quite encapsulates the feeling. (There, I used a big word without thinking!) Seriously, English is such a rich and complex language. But I fear our collective vocabulary is shrinking every day. But I don't want to lose mine, and am constantly looking up words when I'm reading books or the newspapers. Shamefully, however, I have to admit that I seldom use a paper dictionary these days--it's so much easier to just type a word into the online one.
HANK: Even easier..I just yelled: 'Hey Alexa, what does immiscible mean?" And she said: "immiscible means the incapability of two things being mixed together." Whoa.
RHYS: Alexa knows everything! Scary.
So now it's your turn. Do you find your vocabulary is shrinking? Do you find some words that are confusingly different from their meanings?
I’ll have to check out Word Genius, Rhys. I get an email with a new word every day from TheFreeDictionary [which sounds as if it is much the same as your Word Genius]. I like words and conversations and always look up those pesky words I don’t know. And I hope I’m not letting my vocabulary shrink away . . . .
ReplyDeleteLast night I was at the San Diego Zoo and could not remember "meerkats." "You know, they had their own TV show, they stand up like this, they look like little prairie dogs with black masks..." Glad I'm not the only one with these difficulties!
ReplyDeleteLosing nouns here, too. My two years older husband, who is now 70, is not going through this. That's, what's the word? Frustrating.
ReplyDeleteI knew otiose and sobriquet, but not lambent.
One of my favorite aspects of the Nook e-reading app and device is the ability to highlight unfamiliar words and get definitions and pronunciations. I miss that in paper books, I find.
Yes, so much fun to be able to just tap on the word! Amazing!
DeleteGreat topic, Rhys. Some of those words were familiar - I know I've read them - but am not clear on the definition, say, of otiose. Julia used eldritch on the blog here a while ago, which was a new word for me, so I used it in a book, of course (and thanked you, Julia!).
ReplyDeleteI love when I read a word in the New Yorker I don't know. We usually have a real dictionary sitting our on the coffee table, which I'm usually near when reading the New Yorker, so it's easy to look up there.
And now I have used sobriquet in my (1889) WIP. Thanks, Rhys!
DeleteI seem to know far more words than I ever use in conversation or in writing, not that I write anything anyway. One of my favorite Kindle features is the ability to tap on a word and bring up the definition. I do this as often with familiar words as with strange ones. I suddenly want to know, for instance, the etymology of a word and how to use it in a sentence, other than the one I just read.
ReplyDeleteJuddering: To vibrate violently
Despite the eruption of fire and metal, despite the juddering upheaval, nature had come through unscathed.
From Cambridge English Corpus
Had he really attempted to break through the social and political hierarchies of his time, the war effort would have come to a juddering halt much earlier.
From Cambridge English Corpus
Another thing I do, when reading print as opposed to on my Kindle, is tap tap tap on a word or phrase, stabbing my forefinger through the paper, trying to bring up the dictionary or Wiki-something. Duh.
And I lose words all the time, every day, taking hours describing an object whose name escapes me. I think I need a pressure relief valve to get rid of some of the detritus that used to be brain cells.
Ann, I'm catching up with comments on my phone, and when I click on the comments link, it takes me to the reply box. I could only see the part of your comment that began with the word "valve", but I knew without scrolling up it was yours.
DeleteYou DO write, here, every day, and you have a recognizable style.
Signed,
A reader
Thank you, Rhys! I'm signing up for Word Genius. Not only have I reached the age of noun-loss disease (thank you for giving it a name, Hank), years of technical writing has destroyed by vocabulary. Good tech writing is clear, concise, and direct. That doesn't work for fiction unless you're Hemmingway. I have hard time coming up with better words when I write so I clearly need Word Genius.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to the beginning of your blog, Rhys… So interesting, and so true, how people seldom use elaborate fancy words anymore. And when they do, it’s noticeable. And I’m just as likely these days to look up an acronym of some kind, KWIM?
ReplyDeleteI seem to have a knack for knowing people who often use fancy words!
DeleteAnd the word for this is “glitch”— Wednesday we had a fabulous blog from the amazing Jeanette deBeauvoir — and somehow she thought she was being posted today! Oh no! It’s a fabulous blog, and lots of you commented, and she is going right now to see what everyone said… Please go back and check in with her, too, and let her know it’s fine! We can have a double jungle red blog day! Just go to this link http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2019/08/the-ghosts-in-layers.html?m=1
ReplyDeleteOr Simply scroll down and look at the ghost blog! I know you saw it Wednesday, but come say hi to Jeanette!
How many friends does it take to find a lost noun? It’s scary. Especially finding proper nouns!
ReplyDeleteYes, Hallie, yikes. And the facial recognition disease. We play that game all the time at our house. "You know that actress, what's her name, that was in ---?" Or "I know I know who that person is..."
DeleteI knew about half your list, Rhys. With two English degrees, I like to think I have a large vocabulary. I like Lucy's explanation - with so many words to sort through sometimes it takes a few seconds to find the right one.
ReplyDeleteAnd we have the "thing" conversation in our house, too. It's a mark of a good marriage that we can eventually figure out what the other person is talking about.
I knew none of the words Rhys mentioned and if I saw several on page one of a new novel, I'd put it down. I want to be captured by the character and story, not new words to look up.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point, Jack- realizing I don’t encounter unfamiliar words in fiction as much as nonfiction
ReplyDeleteShalom Reds and fans. My father was an early devotee of the New York Times. Probably in elementary school, just like me. He always used big words with us. Usually, when he was scolding us. “David. Why do you have to be so obstreperous?” As a young man, I worked as a typographer. I used the dictionary mostly to check spelling. Whereas I began as a weak speller, I became pretty good at it after a few years. Reading, I always encounter words that I don’t know. I don’t like to break the flow of my reading, so I write them down, usually in the back of the book with the page number noted. I, then, after my reading session, look them all up at once. I admit, I usually have to look the same word up two or three times before it sticks in my brain. I also admit that I don’t use a physical dictionary much anymore. I have several on my bookshelves but it is too easy to just look the words up online.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I got signed up for Word Genius. I don’t remember doing it. Nevertheless, I sometimes open up the email. It seems to be mostly words I would never use or even come across.
Sometimes I feel like I have forgotten more words than I know. Most of the time when I see an unfamiliar word in a story, I'll just go with the context and not bother to look it up anymore, unless it really matters to know. I won't probably use it in speaking or writing. When searching for the nouns when talking to my husband, he just turns away until I come up with it, or not. Sometimes I realize that he doesn't need to know what I was going to tell him, anyway. (Long marriage.) Lastly, I am studying a foreign language in a class where we speak it exclusively. That is where I am expending all efforts to acquire vocabulary. Those seldom used words which I am forgetting, I am trying not to worry about them.
ReplyDeleteNot too long after my niece was born, I was visiting my family. I used plethora in a sentence, and my sister-in-law said, "If Caitlyn hangs around you very much, she is going to have a very large vocabulary." I took that as the compliment she meant it as.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are days my vocabulary completely fails me and I'm reduced to "that thing." Or days where I say one thing but mean something else.
I have always prided myself on having a good vocabulary. David Squires, I had the same experience with Word Genius--recently somehow it just started coming. However, reading Rhys's post, I realized I hadn't seen it for a couple of weeks. Sure enough, there it was in my spam folder, so I hope I have fixed it because I love it! I know many of the words, but not all. Of the five that Rhys listed, however, I know only sobriquet.
ReplyDeleteIn Toastmasters, we have a Word of the Day for each meeting, which we have to try to use in our speeches, evaluations, impromptu speaking, and the like. It's a real art for the Word Master to come up with something that is challenging but usable. Often the words are too easy, but sometimes they are way too specific--interoperable was a recent one. It did relate to our theme for that meeting, but it didn't lend itself to regular conversation. My favorite word that I proposed was gobsmacked. Many of our members hadn't heard of it, but I hear it creeping into their conversation now!
I loved gobsmacked, Margie. It's so British. But everyone in my family uses it often.
DeleteI was an English major and prided myself on my vocabulary. Then I became a lawyer and learned numerous Latin phrases that are completely unusable except to other lawyers. Now that I am retired they are just taking up space in my brain. My favorite was res ipsa loquitur which means "the thing speaks for itself." If something is just too outrageous or egregious it doesn't even need comment, that is my phrase.
ReplyDeleteI am not unknown. I just am posting here for the first time! I see the directions below now. I have never been good at following directions.
DeleteI have a doctorate in linguistics, and also have a number of generally useless phrases in my brain. Still, I throw in antepenultimate and disambiguation as often as possible!
DeleteI love that phrase Karen, res ipsa loquitur! going to have to save and use that...
DeleteEdith, I took a course on linguistics in graduate school and I loved it. Still love learning about word origins and the changes in pronunciation around the world.
DeleteI hope not! Among the things that I love about reading books is that I always learn a new word. I remember telling Jacqueline Winspear that when I read Maisie Dobbs that I learn new words. I remember learning new words like "meander" and now I notice that word often in other novels by other authors. A college friend, who got her PhD. in English literature, is always saying new words in conversation. For example, I remember she said "vapid" to describe a popular tv series. Still, we were hooked on that show anyway. LOL.
ReplyDeleteHighly doubt my vocabulary is shrinking. I think I am always learning new words. Yes, I remember learning the word Nemesis from reading Agatha Christie.
As a child in school, I was always writing new words for vocabulary lessons and I would create sentences out of new words. I remember learning the word "gamey", meaning someone smells bad. At that time I loved MAD magazine and I remember a cartoon of Julius Caesar and someone saying the word "gamey".
There used to be movie magazines and I remember learning new words like "purchase" and I learned it meant buy. An actor purchased a farm in Montana.
Another friend wrote a memoir and he mentioned a story about a friend who used "ten dollar words", meaning that the words were big words, the kind of words that would require you to look up in a dictionary. LOL
And I remember learning new words like "comprehend" through my foreign language lessons when I looked for the English translation.
I never used "ain't" nor words like these. I think these words were often spoken, not written. Growing up deaf, I relied on the written language. And it was hard to lipread if someone said "ain't" because I would have thought they said "ant". LOL
Language have changed over the years. I remember reading diaries by Sarah Jennings who became the Duchess of Marlborough for a history class in college.
And I am going to check out Word Finder!
Thank you for a great post!
Diana
I had a great vocabulary as a child since I read so much. Now I can't seem to pull those words out of my brain. Just last week I was playing verbal charades with my husband, feeding him clues, hoping he would guess the name I was so desperately trying to remember. It's not fun, folks. I still read a lot and work two crosswords daily, but my brain is not cooperating. Words just get mired in there. Love your word list, Rhys. Some are familiar, some not. Otiose should relate to hearing in my mind. And words that sound the opposite of what they are? How about pulchritudinous. Doesn't it sound nasty? It means beautiful. And I have to look up portmanteau every time I run across it in a crossword. It means a word made from a blend of other words. I can remember suitcase, but not word blends. I'll have to check out Word Genius. I need to know more words I can't remember.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever wish to read a book that will challenge your vocabulary, read The Once & Future King, by TH White. I was in an Arthurian phase as an 8th grader...read all the kids versions of the Arthurian legends and then came upon this book and Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Mort de Artur, translated. I found them both a serious stretch for me but got through LeMort....I couldn’t get through Once &Future King. Re-reading both in college was better, and I did get through them both, but still needed a dictionary at hand.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to trying Word Genius.... I agree my vocabulary is changing. Not necessarily shrinking....remember we didn’t have words like cell phone, or Google in our vocabulary back in college ( at least I didn’t). Thanks Reds for another thought provoking read.....
The Once and Future King is one of my all-time favorite books, but I haven't reread it in years. I don't remember the vocabulary being difficult, but maybe I need to pick it up for another look!
DeleteWhen choosing words to write dialogue in a book, it is hard to reflect the different accents heard in say, northern Mississippi, Oakland, or New York without stepping on someone's toes. Yet to write as if everyone speaks the same is not an accurate portrayal. I liked the way Robert B. Parker had the character Hawk alternate between street slang and sounding like a college professor.
ReplyDeleteIn a couple months of Word Genius, I've only been stumped once. I'll have to try the Free Dictionary to see if they are more challenging.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed!
DeleteReading Thomas Hardy, Dickens, Jane Austen, or even the novel Tom Jones, which is even older, is a revelation, just as Rhys says. Vocabulary was enormous then, especially compared to the average person now. And especially compared to most Americans. It's a bit shocking to realize how much we've lost, literacy-wise, despite the much more organized educational systems.
ReplyDeleteBut how many of us read original texts in Latin or Greek, which was once considered the standard for an educated person? Not many these days. However, fluency in those two languages would considerably deepen ones vocabulary.
Ah, I've spent my life fascinated by words, searching for the apposite one in speaking or writing, not wanting to be accused of being either laconic or verbose. And, not wanting to be misunderstood or incomprehensible. For example, using the word "apposite," which I often do, I risk someone not being familiar with the word and thinking I mean "opposite," which, ironically, is the opposite of apposite. Then, there's the fun in using words to reproach, rebuke, or admonish someone. For example, using the word "officious" when someone giving you unsolicited advise or criticism. You can thank someone for their officious remark, which is actually reprimanding them, because it doesn't sound like you are doing so. It sounds so much like official or something proper. Hahaha! Of course, you have to pick your audience with that.
ReplyDeleteRhys, you mentioned Agatha Christie, who was an integral part of my vocabulary enrichment. In fact, although I graduated with an English degree from college, I credit reading all of the Agatha Christie novels and finding the quintessential vocabulary book with improving my vocabulary to an acceptable level. That vocabulary primer is Norman Shur's 1,000 Most Important Words. I do believe that reading is the best vocabulary primer though. Both my children and my ten-year-old granddaughter have excellent vocabularies due to that factor alone.
I, too, suffer from "What's-That-Word-I'm-Trying-To-Think-Of" malady these days, especially in speaking, when you don't have the recovery time you do in writing. So, when next you see me, if I sound like a babbling idiot, please remember that underneath that drivel I really do have words.
I tell my husband of 47 years that we can never divorce as we are each other’s collective memory. Between us we can usually come up with the missing word, name or event.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I didn't know all your words, I think I have a pretty good vocabulary thanks to reading. I don't use most of the words in speaking. I've always blanked out on words and sometimes get stuck on the wrong word. When I started learning German for a trip, I got my German and Spanish mixed sometimes. Even mixed the articles like "das sombrero" and "el Hute". It's harder to remember as we get older. Yes, we know more but we have more to sort through to find the answer. My brain is doing that whirly computer thing.
ReplyDeleteHalcyon. It sounds like a heck of a storm, to me. And you mystery writers probably say, "Defenestration (yawn) -- sure, use it every day." If you told me it means slashing away vines in the jungle, I would believe you, but its real meaning? No. Huh.uh.
ReplyDeleteNot daily, but every Wednesday I check out Ann Parker's blog, http://silverrushmysteries.blogspot.com/, where Ann describes her research to determine whether a word or phrase is appropriate for the era in which her novels are set. It's unlikely many will be popping up in my everyday speech, but, as I've said to Ann, sometimes a post reminds me of the word lists studied for the SATs.
ReplyDeleteI knew riparian in high school, I took a forestry class. I also knew bucolic, it's a great word. I remember learning superfluous, love pulling it out every now and then. New words can be problematic due to being bit dyslexic. I've been known to make up words while I'm reading and couldn't figure out the word I was looking at, even in context of the sentence or story. Of course all these fangled gadgets does make it easier for the definition but not the pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteI work with someone who does not use contractions. I have never heard her ever use one. I have no idea how she does it.
Back in the 1950s, my father used to administer the U.S. Civil Service exam and would bring home vocabulary words from the test to teach my older brothers and me. I was probably the only 1st grader at my school who knew what "penultimate" meant and how to spell it.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I thought "otiose" was "fat". Live and learn. My three siblings and I love words. When we were young we used to make a game out of using the biggest, most pretentious word we could think of to say the most mundane things. i.e. "kindly convey the macerated tubers hither." We spent a lot of time at the dinner table convulsed with laughter.
ReplyDeleteI'm just catching up and must comment with my word nemesis: diffident. I have confused it with "indifferent" in my addled brain for so long that I can't straighten it out. Worse, I used it frequently, in many places. At the vet: "Mavis is just a diffident eater, so getting her excited about this renal diet is going to be tough". I'm sure they thought I was pretentious and dumb. Now I've banned it. I'm a reader who must read with a pencil, in order to underline the sentences that make me tingle, and I use that same pencil to write down the words I don't know, and the page numbers on which they appear. That way, after I look them up, I can go back and see them in context in my book. I've been surprised at how many times my guesses at what the author was getting at weren't spot on.
ReplyDelete