Teaching a old dog new words

I read this book last week, on the suggestion of one of my Shelfari.com friends, and really enjoyed it. It was well-written and dealt with the Salem witch hysteria in a fictional manner. But that's not what endeared me to this book. I liked it so much because I found that I had to use the dictionary to read it! One of my sons asked me, "Mom, do you have to have the dictionary to read that book?" I am no word scholar, but I must admit I was as surprised as he. Here are the words I learned, and their meaning:

• Puce:a dark or brownish purple
• Obfuscation: to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy
• Anomalous: deviating from or inconsistent with the common order, form, or rule; irregular; abnormal
• Detritus: any disintegrated material; debris
• Esplanade: any open, level space, esp. one serving for public walks or drives
• Inveigle: to acquire, win, or obtain by beguiling talk or methods
• Odious: deserving or causing hatred; hateful; detestable
• Dilatory: tending to delay or procrastinate; slow; tardy
• Hubris: excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance
• Salacious: obscene; grossly indecent
• Extant: in existence; still existing; not destroyed or lost
• Quotidian: usual or customary; everyday
• Grimoire: a manual of black magic (for invoking spirits and demons)

So, I was familiar with "anomaly", which would be a variant of "anomalous". "Extant" may be the opposite of "extinct", making that one reasonably understood. "Quotidian" contains the root "quote" or "quota", indicating a measure of something. Jim knew what "hubris" meant, which thrilled me.

Aren't these all beautiful words? I am not at all sure they would work in everyday language, but I may give it a try! My favorite (at the moment) is "salacious" and I can already think of several instances that it would work perfectly. HA

Read, good people, READ!

Everyone's a Winner!

How very odd... I sense a bit of skulduggery...


Let me review the rules:

LOOK at the word.

Don't look UP the word.

Use the word in a sentence in the way you think it means.

Either your vocabulary is much better than mine, which is a possibility, or you all looked up the word.

Webster's Follies: loquacious

Please use this word in a sentence, without looking it up:

loquacious

Post your sentence in the comments. Winner of bragging rights announced at the end of this week.

And the winner is...accoutrement

ac·cou·tre·ment (əˈkuːtrəmənt)
n.
1. An accessory item of equipment or dress. Often used in the plural.

Believe it or not, I found a reference to this word on another blog:

What an absolutely charming way to describe stuff! It makes everyday “things” seem much more important:

It’s not a pile if junk, it’s “assorted accoutrement”!

It’s not a bunch of crap, it’s “a stunning array of accoutrement”!

It’s not a load of old tat, it’s “every accoutrement you could ever need”!

What’s not to love about a word that makes you feel witty, worldly, and well-heeled. It’s what’s commonly referred to in some circles as a 50 cent word, giving any boring old
sentence an air of style and grace.

Put on your fancy dress with your best accoutrements and lets go out on the town!

Mama made pot roast with all the accoutrements! Yum!

Our new car came with all the modern accoutrements – we’re so spoiled!

Accoutrement good! So very, very good!
reference http://www.myfavoriteword.com/2007/12/19/accoutrement/

I know that the word is most often used when talking about military regalia.

Accoutrements, from Wikipedia

In English, the word Accoutrements can have several meanings:

• an accessory
• apparatus needed for a task or journey
• military equipment other than weapons and uniform
• trappings

With the above in mind, I would award this week's Webster's Follies to Janet Ingram. Congratulations!

New word added to list

We added a new word this week to our usage list: flamboyant

Main Entry: flam·boy·ant

Pronunciation: \-ənt\

Function: adjective

Etymology: French, from present participle of flamboyer to flame, from Old French, from flambe

Date: 1832

1 often capitalized : characterized by waving curves suggesting flames

2 : marked by or given to strikingly elaborate or colorful display or behavior

Dana - How about a sentence?

Webster's Follies: accoutrement

Round 2 of our game, Webster's Follies is the word accoutrement.

Please use in a sentence, send to either Dana or me, or post in the comments section.

Remember, don't look up the word first! The closest one to the proper usage is the winner of bragging rights.

How to view the comments on a post

I have tried to change the settings for the site to include the comments directly under the post. From what I can gather from the Help page, this is not an available option. If you'd like to see the comments, simply click on the title of the post, and it will refresh the page to include the post and all comments for that post. Once you read all of the comments and want to return to the site, click on the title "That's Uncanny!".

Have fun and thanks for following our word adventures!

Hmmm

I think both Dana and I failed the first round. I AM disappointed, though, that Mary Nell didn't chime in with a sentence of her own.

Robin hood had no compunction about stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

Do any of you have another word for us?

Round 1 goes to....

You be the judge...

Carmen's sentence: "He didn't clean his room willingly, but under compunction."

Dana's sentence: "The preacher's sermon was delivered with conviction and great compunction."

compunction- a feeling of uneasiness or anxiety of the conscience caused by regret for doing wrong or causing pain; contrition; remorse; any uneasiness or hesitation about the rightness of an action.

Introducing Webster's Follies!

The thought-provoking game of word exploration…

Carmen and Dana are excited to introduce a new feature of That’s Uncanny- a game we like to call “Webster’s Follies” (acknowledgement to TJ Guffey for creating the “name of the game”).

This game was inspired on Sunday morning, when new follower of the site Mary Nell Smalley suggested a word to add to our list. When questioned about what this word means, Mary Nell was unable to provide an answer, spurring doubt in the mind of Carmen as to whether the word really exists.

The idea of the game is to introduce a word of which no one knows the definition. Participants are asked to send a sentence to Dana, via email or post comment, using this word in a way that they believe to be correct. This is to be done WITHOUT looking up the definition of the word in a dictionary, thesaurus, or consulting another source. After ample time is provided, the sentences will be posted on the site, along with the correct definition. The winner is whomever most closely uses the word in its correct function.
Let the game begin!

This week’s word, provided by follower Mary Nell Smalley, is COMPUNCTION.

(SNIFF) I'm so proud!

Jack was talking to me about ... well, I'll just be honest here ... loogies, and he used a fabulous word: ROGUE.

Now, we all know Rogue from the X-Men comics and movies, where the character is played by Anna Paquin. Not her read name, she adopted the nickname "rogue" because she ran away from home as a young teenager.

This character may very well be where he became familiar with the word, but that would not have given him insight into the definition. He used it correctly, "That was a rogue loogie", speaking of a loogie that was not with / like the rest. A rebel loogie.

Bravo, Jack!