Big words

Honey is a highly educated, and intelligent writer.
She is very gifted in languages, and just seems to know the meanings of words. Obscure English words tend to get used in sentences, in ways that seem so common and effortless. If I were to say them, you might think…. Wow, how long have you been working on getting that into a sentence.  But to her they are just words she assumes everyone uses in every day conversation.

To me its like, wait, I should write that down.
So as she says them, I will list them. At least until she discovers I am doing it.

  • On the way to work, discussing a certain potential wife she expresses the opionion
    “She is really just rapacious”
    What? “Greedy.” No what did you say? “She is rapacious” Oh, ok.
  • So, during a backyar’d dinner conversation vaguely revolving around work place theory, she replies, Well that gives it a “stamp of verisimilitude”
    Wait, what? What does that even mean?
  • “Honey, I am thinking of adding some strawberry plants to the tub where the parsly and rosemary are growing.””Oh wonderful, our own little potager.”
    “Well, I was thinking more of a little herb garden, but ok….”
  • “Byzantine” – talking about a work procedure, something like …
    “The whole process was so byzantine.”
  • While reviewing the Tivo show schedule, and seeing three similar shows in a row – “Ohh, its a triad.
  • I ask….Honey, is anal-retentive hyphenated, or two words?
    “Well, of course when used as a compound modifier (yada..yada..yada..)”
    Um, thanks.
  • “Well, that was certainly an infelicitous response on his part.
    Huh? Wow, just how do you spell that?
  • During a philosophical discussion as to why people with too much money to spend just do not seem to have good taste in home decorating. Honeys position seemed to be that the opportunity to overspend on decorating “…should be more meritorious.”
    I agree,….I think
  • In tempering her enthusiasm upon discovering one of her favorite TV shows is showing for the first time of the new season… Well, I assume it is one of those pastiche shows.
    Who says that?
    Meaning a pastiche of incongruous parts; a hodgepodge.
    I had to look it up at ‘The Free Dictionary’
  • After returning from a long day away from home Honey notes that ‘Jack the stay at home dog’ seems to be pouting since we have ignored him. After trying to explain that he has done this before, she sums it up be claiming something about being or not being anthropomorphic, I’m not sure which.  Once more to the dictionary…… “ascribing human form or attributes to a being or thing not human”.  
    That is not a word many people actually use in a sentence Honey.

    Thanks to dictionary.com for the spelling on this one.
  • Then there was profligate. Don’t remember how that one came up, but how cool is it that she can use a word like that with a straight face?
  • During one our contentious political debates, that I continually provoke and then lose, Honey asked : “is it  not wrong to excoriate a person in that manner.”
    I didn’t even know how to answer that. It sounded painful though.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *