Comments on: 100 words every high school graduate should know

100 words every high school graduate should know

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:49:21 -0800

100 words every high school graduate should know (according to the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries).

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:50:02 -0800

Now that you've read the list, you don't need to buy the book. It's like $5.95 worth of free words!

By: ntartifex

ntartifex — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:57:05 -0800

I like how "kowtow" and "obsequious" are included.

By: davey_darling

davey_darling — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:59:35 -0800

loquacious ...and the rest of us toil away in obscurity.

By: fnord

fnord — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:02:29 -0800

Also titled 'List of the next 99 metafilter sockpuppets'

By: buriednexttoyou

buriednexttoyou — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:03:51 -0800

I think it is just precipitous of them to expect kids to bowdlerize these obviously diffident words. It just makes me bellicose to expurgate about it!

By: caddis

caddis — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:04:50 -0800

and if you don't know them all you had best buy a copy of our dictionary.....

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:04:55 -0800

...and the rest of us toil away in obscurity. The hell we do.

By: Rumple

Rumple — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:05:04 -0800

they forgot "pedant"

By: yhbc

yhbc — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:05:43 -0800

"abstemious" is only on the list so they know a word with all the vowels in alphabetical order. You'd be surprised how often that comes up, and you don't want to look like a fool without a quick answer.

By: peacay

peacay — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:06:01 -0800

So nonsectarian is a single word? I mean, I'll accept that it has transmutatified from the hyphenated rabble if that is indeed the case. But it struck me as a bit odd.

By: mikeweeney

mikeweeney — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:06:40 -0800

"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves." So basically another way for rich white people to feel good about themselves. Awesome. This list is bullshit.

By: randomination

randomination — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:06:59 -0800

quasar vortex Some of these are really near misses.

By: MtDewd

MtDewd — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:07:36 -0800

At least everyone knows what paradigm means.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:08:14 -0800

Impeach. lol. I didn't know abjure, enervate, moiety, (and oh the irony) orthography. I'd also heard the word obsequious, but never knew what it meant. I don't like word lists like this, though, because they present a small set of "big" words that people should know, when in fact knowing those words should be an indicator of actually knowing many of the thousands of less commonly used words. Are there any websites out there where you can test your vocab against a huge wordlist? I think that would be kind of fun.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:09:47 -0800

does anyone else think this is largely meant for educated adults to read and go "shit! I don't know some of these! And I even went to college!" less of a "you high schoolers better learn this before you graduate" and more of a "haha, how dumb do you feel, alumnus?"

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:10:07 -0800

Spell checkers will do that for you, delmoi.

By: jourman2

jourman2 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:10:23 -0800

Has anyone ever heard jejune used in any context except for this list?

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:13:32 -0800

Someone called me a "jejune mefite" in that victorian flying chatroom the other day. Which was, somehow, more odd than the flying victorians.

By: SentientAI

SentientAI — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:15:21 -0800

I feel so bourgeois.

By: MarshallPoe

MarshallPoe — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:17:08 -0800

I figure that I knew about half of these when I graduated from Wichita Southeast, home of the Golden Buffaloes.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:24:35 -0800

Bah. I don't need this list, or their book. I'll spend the money on ecdysiasts and alkaloids.

By: Muddler

Muddler — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:24:48 -0800

How about a list of 100 words every high school teacher should know? 1) phatty Let the games begin...

By: oddman

oddman — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:25:52 -0800

"Euro," really? Euro? How does knowing the adjective for European things and the name for the European monetary unit make you a better English speaker? I mean why not ruble, pound, dinar, or peso? Aldarian dollars!

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:29:10 -0800

So basically another way for rich white people to feel good about themselves. So in your mind, high school graduates are rich and white?

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:29:39 -0800

This is exactly why metal is so educational. abjure abrogate lugubrious metamorphosis sanguine subjugate chicanery equinox usurp omnipotent nihilism auspicious paradigm feckless hegemony hubris irony kinetic kowtow lexicon obsequious parameter plasma precipitous quasar quotidian recapitulation totalitarian vacuous vehement wrought etc.

By: dame

dame — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:32:27 -0800

I am not white or rich and I feel very good about myself (only missed one!). So nonsectarian is a single word? I mean, I'll accept that it has transmutatified from the hyphenated rabble if that is indeed the case. But it struck me as a bit odd. In general, nonhyphenation is preferred, unless there are repeated vowels and you are not the New Yorker. Exceptions are also made for the giantly awkward.

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:35:15 -0800

the AP recently ran a story about some guy being "immured" by Iran. . . my first reaction was wtf [exactly] does immure mean, but having taught Latin roots in Japan for a year I saw that it was im + mur (in + wall) and knew that Iran had gone Edgar Allan Poe on this guy.

By: davy

davy — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:35:49 -0800

Paradigm.

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:36:09 -0800

In general, non-hyphenation is preferred, fixed that for you.

By: davy

davy — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:36:33 -0800

No, wait, paradigm.

By: davy

davy — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:38:32 -0800

But wolfdog, I can't understand growled lyrics. Is there one Dark Metal vocalist who can actually SING?

By: imperium

imperium — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:42:05 -0800

Surely ecumenical would be a better choice than nonsectarian. I know they're not synonyms, but outside Scotland and Ireland, how much call for sectarianism is there?

By: carsonb

carsonb — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:42:22 -0800

They forgot callipygian and pulchritude. Post-high chicks dig guys who can tell them they gots tha phat back and sweet rack with big words.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:42:27 -0800

Brother can you paradigm?

By: imperium

imperium — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:42:34 -0800

Oh, and $5 for the first person to use all 100 in a plausible and grammatical sentence.

By: adgnyc

adgnyc — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:42:42 -0800

I'm white, though not rich. I knew all the words. I still don't feel so hot about myself.

By: adgnyc

adgnyc — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:44:40 -0800

Oh, and $5 for the first person to use all 100 in a plausible and grammatical sentence. This is the kind of challenge I could see myself taking, spending all day on, and then wanting to kill myself when I was done. So, regretfully and respectfully, I decline.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:46:11 -0800

I used the word "tangential" (or "tangentially") is a meeting once and you'd have thought I took off my pants and danced on the table. People were stunned and could talk about nothing but the word "tangential" for the next several minutes. My conculsion was that most people are philistines. Vacuous philestines.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:46:44 -0800

Oh, and $5 for the first person to use all 100 in a plausible and grammatical sentence. The 100 words every high school student should know are: abjure, abrogate, abstemious, acumen, antebellum, auspicious, belie, bellicose, bowdlerize, chicanery, chromosome, churlish, circumlocution, circumnavigate, deciduous, deleterious, diffident, enervate, enfranchise, epiphany, equinox, euro, evanescent, expurgate, facetious, fatuous, feckless, fiduciary, filibuster, gamete, gauche, gerrymander, hegemony, hemoglobin, homogeneous, hubris, hypotenuse, impeach, incognito, incontrovertible, inculcate, infrastructure, interpolate, irony, jejune, kinetic, kowtow, laissez faire, lexicon, loquacious, lugubrious, metamorphosis, mitosis, moiety, nanotechnology, nihilism, nomenclature, nonsectarian, notarize, obsequious, oligarchy, omnipotent, orthography, oxidize, parabola, paradigm, parameter, pecuniary, photosynthesis, plagiarize, plasma, polymer, precipitous, quasar, quotidian, recapitulate, reciprocal, reparation, respiration, sanguine, soliloquy, subjugate, suffragist, supercilious, tautology, taxonomy, tectonic, tempestuous, thermodynamics, totalitarian, unctuous, usurp, vacuous, vehement, vortex, winnow, wrought, xenophobe, yeoman, and ziggurat.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:47:21 -0800

Oh, and $5 for the first person to use all 100 in a plausible and grammatical sentence. With padding, it would have to be a 150 to 200 word sentence. Which is almost by definition impossible.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:47:41 -0800

On non-preview: damn!

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:47:49 -0800

By: bonecrusher

bonecrusher — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:50:41 -0800

"ziggurat"? I'm pretty sure that's only in there to support the "A-Z" claim. Or are we as a nation expecting a shortage of pagan high priestesses when the baby-boomers all retire?

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:51:31 -0800

Ziggurat is a really great word to know if and only if you ever need to talk about ziggurats. It hasn't come up much for me.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:52:00 -0800

Most of these words are overly complex when a simpler word would convey the same meaning and be more easily understood. For example, more people will understand what I mean by "everyday experience" than would if I said "quotidian experience," and there isn't enough extra meaning in "quotidian" to justify having fewer people understand what I meant. Which is clearer: "Utilize an excavational implement to actuate excrement," or "shovel shit"?

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:53:22 -0800

When it comes to shoveling shit, you don't necessarily want to be clear.

By: BigLankyBastard

BigLankyBastard — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:53:54 -0800

Guyzero, I had the exact same experience using "capricious" in a meeting. There was much snickering at the far end of the table as various semi-literate wags speculated that I meant "In the manner of a crappy domestic car." Idiots.

By: Grizzlepaws

Grizzlepaws — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:55:12 -0800

Pretentious isn't on the list. These words might be important for a college grad interested in taking, say, the GRE. Sure, it would be good to know these words, especially if you are a reader, but I would think that this book and others like it just promote stilted freshman writing throughout the country.

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:56:00 -0800

I think the best thing that ever happened to my vocabularly as a kid was the Fiend Folio.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:58:06 -0800

Put gamete and gauche together, and you get gamahuche, which is much more fun. So nonsectarian is a single word? Yes. So basically another way for rich white people to feel good about themselves. Awesome. I hope this is a failed joke. Or are you seriously suggesting that black people don't need anything more than Basic English?

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:01:56 -0800

Dear High School Graduates, This list will not help you get laid. Do with that what you will.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:02:34 -0800

Moiety? When was the last time...scratch that...when have you ever heard someone use moiety in a sentence? or gamete for that matter?

By: ob

ob — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:03:11 -0800

Until I looked it up, whilst I knew that winnow and whittle has similar meanings (figuratively) I never knew that winnow connotes a gentler act of removing something akin to sifting whereas whittle is somewhat more forceful. I actually find this quite fascinating.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:04:21 -0800

Ziggurat is a good word if you want to drastically change the old Replacements song, "More Cigarrettes" to "More Ziggurats." And who wouldn't want to do that?

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:06:46 -0800

What? How is "cockmongery" not on this list?

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:06:52 -0800

I feel bad I couldn't link to an example for "notarize", but some things - a few things - are just not metal.

By: elendil71

elendil71 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:08:34 -0800

I think I'd smack someone on the noggin for using words like; inculcate, bowdlerize, and jejune. Although I have to admit I like the broad definition of 'jejune', although the phrase "fuckin' lame" pretty much covers all possible permutations and is more readily understood by most listeners. Although I might be bowdlerized if I wrote that down... Doh!

By: gompa

gompa — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:09:39 -0800

Has anyone ever heard jejune used in any context except for this list? Well, at an auspicious nanotechnology seminar recently, I was inculcated during one quotidian soliliquy on the taxonomy of plasma with a bit of fatuous chicanery that so enervated me I nearly choked on a jejune polymer, after which I interpolated that I should abjure a feckless and lugubrious lexicon in this new paradigm. But other than that one time I damn near gagged on my pen cap, it hasn't come up.

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:10:25 -0800

I got a room full of bogglement for using the word "demonstrably." It's not that we're pretentious, it's that everybody else is so stupid. Word lists like this lead to phrases like pugnacious pugilistic paradigm, which leads to darkness.

By: hoverboards don't work on water

hoverboards don't work on water — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:11:20 -0800

I'd like to see the 100 words that non-rich, non-white high school graduates should know then.

By: dame

dame — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:11:29 -0800

and there isn't enough extra meaning in "quotidian" to justify having fewer people understand what I meant Except it is useful (a) if someone else used it or (b) you take French (or perhaps other Romance languages), and then you get like half your vocab for free. But anyway, why argue against knowing more words? Words are fun. It is fun to say ziggurat. You can make more puns and bad jokes with a wider vocabulary. And depending on the girls you like, it can definitely get you laid. I mean, do you even know what kind of shit gets humanities nerd girls out of their clothes?!

By: Foosnark

Foosnark — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:12:15 -0800

As I've previously said in a rant elsewhere about this same list: This is just porn for vocabulary geeks. From here it looks like high schools need to concentrate on the proper spelling of "you", how to use apostrophes, the purpose of voting and so on.

By: jeremy b

jeremy b — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:12:59 -0800

Raise your hand if you can't read the word "xenophobe" without thinking of that video game that was cool for the first few quarters until you realized it sucked.

By: Grizzlepaws

Grizzlepaws — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:16:13 -0800

*raises hand to jeremy b* bizarre game, entirely.

By: gompa

gompa — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:18:01 -0800

This is just porn for vocabulary geeks. From here it looks like high schools need to concentrate on the proper spelling of "you", how to use apostrophes, the purpose of voting and so on. Such diffident and churlish hubris! A sort of abstemious irony, if you will. *adjusts monocle*

By: hoverboards don't work on water

hoverboards don't work on water — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:19:52 -0800

Also, a good way to tell whether these words are actually used by real people is to google them. If the #1 result is a dictionary, then there are likely simpler, better synonyms. Would somebody like to do those 100 Google searches and report back?

By: Grizzlepaws

Grizzlepaws — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:22:07 -0800

gompa: an irony which is sparing in consumption of food or drink? Hoverboards: I agree. There is virtue in knowing these words, but for clarity, alternates would be better.

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:22:23 -0800

some of my favorite words. autocthonous anacoluthon benthic bactrian caryatid chiastic dryad dromedary (ok so I like camels) effulgent elixir fricative fungible gyrate glossolalia hagiography heirophant incarnadine igneous jocose japonica karyatid kinnikinnick labrys latinate mellifluous monstrance nacreous neophyte omphaloskepsis oocyte philtrum penultimate qualia quaff reliquary rhizome stochastic susurrus telos tertiary unguent umwelt verisimilitude verity wyrd woad xenia (ok no more good x-words) yarrow yaw zephyr | zealous yurt yew weal wont ventral victuals ululate ubermensch titration tangential sylvan sinter rereferrer rime quotidian quoits pyrrhic phial oneirodynia ontology nephilim nootropic myriad mews lithic laryngeal kouros kalliope jacaranda jeremiad interstitial ichthyology hermeneutics hyper(anything) glassine gregarious flagellation frangible eilodon exegesis dendritic dichroic cochineal cathecting bilabial bildüngsroman asterism alembic.

By: gompa

gompa — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:25:08 -0800

an irony which is sparing in consumption of food or drink? Aye, verily, an irony in that spirit. An irony characterized by a teetotaler's restraint from unnecessary excess. If you will. As it were. Quid pro quo. QED.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:25:31 -0800

Well, tons of these words will almost never be spoken aloud, but come up often enough in journalism and other writings that it's worthwhile to know them. Plus, whywould we bitch about them pushing for greater vocabulary in High School grads? Seems like a no-brainer to me. I own a copy of the American Heritage Dictionary's 100 Words Almost Everybody Confuses and Misuses, which is great for being a dick on boards about flout vs. flaunt and other such nonsense. Oh, and GuyZero, what kind of lobotomized simian office do you work in where the phrase "tangentially" would raise an eyebrow, let alone stop a meeting? That just blows my mind.

By: pardonyou?

pardonyou? — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:27:26 -0800

"sanguine" is an awesome word. fatuous nihilism nomenclature Someone's been watching The Big Lebowski

By: Grizzlepaws

Grizzlepaws — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:28:01 -0800

ah yes, 100 Latinisms that every high school grad should know. Duly noted.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:29:17 -0800

oh, and /raises hand to jeremy b

By: chlorus

chlorus — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:29:51 -0800

Thanks for the link, this book sounds like a good companion to What Not To Say. Both would make good coffeetable books for grammar nerds and english professors.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:32:25 -0800

This is just porn for vocabulary geeks. What's wrong with that? Don't we vocabulary geeks deserve a little porn too?

By: exogenous

exogenous — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:33:45 -0800

"expurgate" is kind of close, though I prefer parmanparman's misremembering of my handle as "exegenesis"

By: jonmc

jonmc — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:39:17 -0800

eye dunt no anee wurds.

By: 1f2frfbf

1f2frfbf — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:40:38 -0800

/me hits command-F, types "beer", browser returns "not found." Pffft. Nice try, but not nearly complete. Without this knowledge, no student can ever be considered truly educated.

By: asok

asok — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:42:55 -0800

I'm with dame, words are good, let's use more of them. The english language has a fantastic vocabulary that should be taken advantage of whenever possible. I must admit, if a book I am reading doesn't contain at least a few words that I don't know, then I am disappointed. Maybe my orthographical abilities are somewhat jejune? Today's word is garrulous. Points are awarded for the number of times you can use the word without those you are speaking to stopping you to ask what it means.

By: subaruwrx

subaruwrx — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:45:11 -0800

I liked this better when I read it on digg last week.

By: spicynuts

spicynuts — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:45:53 -0800

I hope this is a failed joke. Or are you seriously suggesting that black people don't need anything more than Basic English? What about us po' white folk?

By: imperium

imperium — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:52:06 -0800

Of course, the phrase "not in common parlance" is recursive.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:54:47 -0800

This list is bunk. It's pure marketing. What context would the typical modern high school student have for ziggurat? Firefox's spell checker doesn't even recognize it; it's red-underlined on my screen! And lo, the page is a press release, why am I not surprised?

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:58:45 -0800

The absolute worst fuckin' thing about these lists is that every corpo-zombie team leader is going to start using them incorrectly to create office synergy. "Stop fecking, Bob! Stop fecking! We've got to hegomize this company to the top!"

By: Chinese Jet Pilot

Chinese Jet Pilot — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:04:10 -0800

So basically another way for rich white people to feel good about themselves. Awesome. I'd like to see the 100 words that non-rich, non-white high school graduates should know then. mikeweeney and hoverboards don't work on water, please explain to me how advanced vocabulary is limited only to rich white people. Are you suggesting that lower-class people, middle-class people, or people who aren't white, can't have an interest in advanced vocabulary? Do you mean that books with these words are accessible only to rich white people? What should people who aren't rich and white do if they encounter these words, ignore them?

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:04:44 -0800

What's wrong with that? Don't we vocabulary geeks deserve a little porn too? I'm all for development of the language arts, but I believe this should be a self-directed -- personalized -- effort, not some Central Committee handing down the Chairman's Approved List of Culturally Significant Vocabulary. This hit me with my Japanese language studies. I hated my Japanese classes since they were filled with musty out of date and terminally uninteresting books with useless study items. Once I got out in the real world I was able to develop my own language skills, idiosyncratically.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:05:03 -0800

I thought this list was going to be squamous, but it turned out to be quite cromulent.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:10:24 -0800

With padding, it would have to be a 150 to 200 word sentence. Which is almost by definition impossible. Not if you're Edgar A. Poe.

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:10:53 -0800

It's great that that... impeach is on the list, but am I shocked to see that there's no... integrity?

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:11:14 -0800

It's great that... impeach is on the list, but am I shocked to see that there's no... integrity?

By: dbiedny

dbiedny — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:11:49 -0800

Double THAT, double post. Sometimes I HATE Firefox. Sorry.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:15:00 -0800

please explain to me how advanced vocabulary is limited only to rich white people. Are you suggesting that lower-class people, middle-class people, or people who aren't white, can't have an interest in advanced vocabulary? Do you mean that books with these words are accessible only to rich white people? What should people who aren't rich and white do if they encounter these words, ignore them? It's not, really, but American discourse on socio-economic status is still stuck in the dark ages of racism. It's actually a list for the socio-economic up-and-comers, buzzwords to spin off at job interviews to show you "get it" and will fit into the team nicely. It's a language hijack, but it's nothing new, honestly. It's the sort of thing that happens all the time (see, as I mentioned earlier, "synergy" and other corporate buzzwords from the late 90s and early 00s), but usually not in such a clumsy and straightforward manner. Besides, all this list would really prove is that the highschool student in question was capable of remembering how to use 100 words. It doesn't mean they display a great "command" of the English language, not really. It's more like a cheap way of pretending to have a great command of the language, like people who use the same five big words every day of their life ad nauseum.

By: triggerfinger

triggerfinger — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:18:46 -0800

Raise your hand if you can't read the word "xenophobe" without thinking of that video game that was cool for the first few quarters until you realized it sucked. I liked xenophobe! But then again, I ran out of quarters pretty quickly.

By: kurumi

kurumi — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:22:35 -0800

Moiety? When was the last time...scratch that...when have you ever heard someone use moiety in a sentence? China Mieville's Perdido Street Station: Lin, the Khepri, reminiscing about her childhood. Before that, never, not even in biology class. Otherwise, it's a perfectly cromulent word. My nitpick with the 100 words list: it's horribly incomplete. These kids are going to graduate not even being able to order a sandwich (try it; you can't!), let alone get a degree or start a career.

By: MidAtlantic

MidAtlantic — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:25:16 -0800

90% of these words were in my vocabulary workbooks in high school. Maybe they're trying to boost book sales with an arbitrary list of words I forgot about immediately after being tested on them.

By: hoverboards don't work on water

hoverboards don't work on water — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:27:32 -0800

Whoah, Chinese Jet Pilot! You misinterpret me. And if xenophobe gets all this attention, can we hear some love for Ziggurat Vertigo?

By: dame

dame — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:28:51 -0800

It's not, really, but American discourse on socio-economic status is still stuck in the dark ages of racism. It's actually a list for the socio-economic up-and-comers, buzzwords to spin off at job interviews to show you "get it" and will fit into the team nicely. Really? Ziggarut? Abstemious? Yeoman? What jobs are you interviewing for? It's an ad for a book. People like words like it. Some people, who seem to have a weird language hangup that I have never understood, don't. Is language a signifier for class sometimes, even often? Sure. But this is not that fight.

By: dame

dame — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:29:47 -0800

who, people who like words

By: sebastienbailard

sebastienbailard — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:37:31 -0800

I, for one, offer the editors of the American Heritage Dictionary my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.

By: chuq

chuq — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:40:13 -0800

Has anyone ever heard jejune used in any context except for this list? Boris (Woody Allen): Since when is murder a heroic act? Sonia (Diane Keaton): Violence is justified in the service of mankind. Boris: Who said that? Sonia: Attila the Hun. Boris: You're quoting a Hun to me?! Don't you know that murder carries with it a moral imperative that transcends any notion of inherent universal free will? Sonia: Ooohhhhh ... that is incredibly jejune. Boris: That's jejune? Sonia: Jejune! Boris: You have the temerity to say that I'm talking to you out of jejunosity? I'm one of the most june people in all the Russias! -- Love and Death (1975) Despite the fact that I went to a well-regarded high school and was in the honors English program, I never heard the word "jejune" until I saw the above movie in college. And I had to go look it up afterward. Other than this, in my nearly 24 million minutes of life, I have never once heard the word "jejune" used in conversation, and have rarely enountered it in print.

By: logicpunk

logicpunk — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:46:16 -0800

Really? Ziggarut? Abstemious? Yeoman? What jobs are you interviewing for? Oh... dungeon master, I suppose.

By: The God Complex

The God Complex — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:46:22 -0800

dame, sorry, I was half tongue in cheek and half out. My broader point was simply to clarify that what people were/are really talking about is a class difference, not a race one. Other than that, I was just indulging in a bit of gamesmanship, so to speak. Though I do think there is a fair chance the corpo-zombies will seize on this sort of thing. And, equally, I think "yeoman" is perhaps the best word on the list for a job interview! "I like to do the 'yeoman's share' of the work". Heck, it means loyal, valiant, and workmanlike! Equally, an ostensibly "abstemious" lifestyle will get you all sorts of positions in the American government these days. In fact, it's the centerpiece of their sex ed program! ;)

By: CitrusFreak12

CitrusFreak12 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:47:24 -0800

I know most of these! Hooray!

By: arto

arto — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:48:52 -0800

It was about a quarter past way too damn early. The phone kept on recapitulating its horribly jangly music, but there was no way I was gonna abjure that receiver off the hook just now. I needed a ziggurat almost as bad as I needed an aspirin, and I needed an aspirin almost as bad as I needed the hair of the proverbial dog, but I felt too churlish to hold any of it down, so I searched abstemiously for my Chesterfields and my Zippo. Stop goddamn ringing! Okay, coffin nail in mouth, check, sweet taste of tobacco impeaching my tastebuds, and I was just about ready to belie down and steal forty offa Mr. Sandman when the phone started ringing its horrible antebellum again. The only way I was gonna stop it was answer it with my .38, or my voice. I chose the latter, and immediately regretted. "Why Mr. Lexicon, I thought you'd never answer. Have you forgotten about our little meeting?" It was that sweet little filibuster from last night, the one with the gametes up to here. I got that sinking feeling in my gut, that one that guarantees you're about to interpolate a whole world of trouble.

By: bruce

bruce — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:54:33 -0800

once upon a time, i was sentenced to take a class after a conviction for reckless driving. i questioned the teacher's credentials and sarcastically referred to her as a "pillar of rectitude". immediately, from behind me, a loud male voice queried "what did you just call her??" more teacher fun: in arizona awhile back, a high school principal ordered security to remove a teacher from the grounds after she admitted in a conference that she was a "pedagogue". i'm sure most of you have heard the story out of washington, d.c. about the city official who described his attitude toward spending public money as "niggardly".

By: Karmakaze

Karmakaze — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:55:18 -0800

I knew all of them, and use maybe half of them. I think, though, that the authors are asserting that a well-educated person should have run across those words by the time they graduate high school, not that all students should be given that list to memorize absent of context. My vocab story? I had a lawyer ask me to hide some content on one of his documents. I send a note back telling him I'd elided the offending bits. He sent me a note back thanking me for doing the work, and for teaching him a new word (elide). It cracked me up.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:59:49 -0800

I have heard the word jejune more than once in conversation. I think it's a pretentious word, but it is used. And can people please stop pretending that any word they don't personally use/know is some weird thing dug up by dictionary makers for their profit and/or sadistic pleasure? Your vocabulary is not the measure of all things.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:02:43 -0800

more teacher fun: in arizona awhile back, a high school principal ordered security to remove a teacher from the grounds after she admitted in a conference that she was a "pedagogue". "Your search - arizona, high school principal, teacher, pedagogue - did not match any documents." Citation please?

By: JDHarper

JDHarper — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:04:13 -0800

Has anyone ever heard jejune used in any context except for this list?

Yes. I first encountered the word in a Calvin and Hobbes strip, in which Calvin refers to the standard-issue snowmen in his neighborhood.

By: dilettante

dilettante — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:13:45 -0800

Doesn't anyone else know management types who try to use Big Words without knowing the meanings? Doesn't anyone else deliberately expose said execs to fun new Big Words to see if they'll pick them up and start abusing them with hilarious results? What fun we could have had, what wonderful games if this list had only come out while I was still at my last job! Oh. Maybe that's why I'm unemployed.

By: dame

dame — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:18:18 -0800

I see I've been doing it all wrong, TGC!

By: bruce

bruce — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:19:04 -0800

i couldn't find it on google either, l-hat. huh?

By: drezdn

drezdn — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:20:58 -0800

It really seems like cromulent is on its way to the dictionary (according to the wikipedia it already is in websters). While it's hilarious that it is becoming a "real" word, doesn't that actually detract a little from the whole joke of using it?

By: reklaw

reklaw — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:24:15 -0800

Point is, Mr Hat, unless 99% of listeners understand a word when you use it, it's pretty stupid to go ahead and do so anyway. Think it to yourself if that makes you happy, but don't try to use it to get your point across. There are lots of words in this rich language of ours that effectively serve no purpose whatsoever - they do nothing more than act as shibboleths (ha), dividing those who think themselves clever from the rest of us. In pretty much all cases, it'd be much better to just banish them from the language and use the simple, Anglo-Saxon-er word that everyone understands.

By: teleri025

teleri025 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:26:54 -0800

Ah, finally. Proof that my alma mater did me some good. I did know many of these words. Ziggarut, which seems to be debated, was very important. You see, at my university, the library is in a ziggarut. Or as the hoodlums called it, the "Q-bert" building. Ziggarut was way more fun to say. That makes up for me only knowing 90 of them.

By: pointilist

pointilist — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:41:24 -0800

reklaw- We don't get to hear so many good words because people insist on dumbing down. If we are not exposed to other words we will certainly not use them. In many cases context can begin the process of learning a word. Avarice and greed have similar meanings but the sharp edges and snaky sibilant of "avarice" communicate a different feel entirely than the throaty roundness of "greed". The language is richer for it.

By: lekvar

lekvar — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:42:20 -0800

I recognize most of the words on this list, but only through reading. I'd love to use the in conversation but I have no idea how the damned things are pronounced!

By: spicynuts

spicynuts — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:48:37 -0800

There are lots of words in this rich language of ours that effectively serve no purpose whatsoever Other than, say, affording the speaker a plethora of options for being precise or subtle or even colorful/interesting. Who the hell wants to live in a world where there are limits on the number of words one can use? Language is beautiful and complex and gives us character. How about we banish small mindedness rather than words? I'm supposed to stop using words because some boob might think I'm trying to be high and might? Maybe I like words. Do you want to propose a few complex chords you think are too pretentious for use in music and we can all listen to something more Anglo-Saxon-y? I really don't understand the objection to freakin words.

By: adamgreenfield

adamgreenfield — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:59:46 -0800

Point is, Mr Hat, unless 99% of listeners understand a word when you use it, it's pretty stupid to go ahead and do so anyway. This is why our culture's bound straight to the shitter. I absolutely agree that the point of verbal communication is to communicate, but this doesn't in any wise require that the speaker tune his or her utterances to the precise level of the audience. Sometimes the right word - a technical term, or perhaps a concept (setsunai, schadenfreude, etc.) expressed perfectly in a single word in another language for which there is no direct English equivalent - is something that a significant part of your audience won't be familiar with. When such a situation arises, you've really got to go with that word. People aren't idiots: they'll get it from context. Or you'll explain it. Either way, you're showing them respect, which cannot be said for a speaker who dumbs everything down for the benefit of some imagined "99% of listeners."

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:01:09 -0800

Definitions: abjure, abrogate, abstemious, acumen, antebellum, auspicious, belie, bellicose, bowdleriz, chicanery, chromosome, churlish, circumlocution, circumnavigate, deciduous, deleterious, diffident, enervate, enfranchise, epiphany, equinox, euro, evanescent, expurgate, facetious, fatuous, feckless, fiduciary, filibuster, gamete, gauche, gerrymander, hegemony, hemoglobin, homogeneous, hubris, hypotenuse, impeach, incognito, incontrovertible, inculcate, infrastructure, interpolate, irony, jejune, kinetic, kowtow, laissez faire, lexicon, loquacious, lugubrious, metamorphosis, mitosis, moiety, nanotechnology, nihilism, nomenclature, nonsectarian, notarize, obsequious, oligarchy, omnipotent, orthography, oxidize, parabola, paradigm, parameter, pecuniary, photosynthesis, plagiarize, plasma, polymer, precipitous, quasar, quotidian, recapitulate, reciprocal, reparation, respiration, sanguine, soliloquy, subjugate, suffragist, supercilious, tautology, taxonomy, tectonic, tempestuous, thermodynamics, totalitarian, unctuous, usurp, vacuous, vehement, vortex, winnow, wrought, xenophobe, yeoman, ziggurat

By: lekvar

lekvar — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:10:25 -0800

My "high-school vocab" story: I was in a college-level International Relations class. One student was defending his position as a Realist. Midway through his mini-speech, he says, "You know, I'm a laissez faire kinda guy..." The girl immediately behind him lets out a loud "Eeewwwwwwww!" That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the class.

By: rtha

rtha — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:28:23 -0800

There are lots of words in this rich language of ours that effectively serve no purpose whatsoever - they do nothing more than act as shibboleths (ha), dividing those who think themselves clever from the rest of us. In pretty much all cases, it'd be much better to just banish them from the language and use the simple, Anglo-Saxon-er word that everyone understands. Why should I - or anyone - not use a word that perfectly encompasses what I mean just because people are too lazy to open a dictionary? There were a few words on the list whose definition escaped me: I looked them up. I may never use "moiety" in a sentence, but it's cool to know it. The fact that someone else may think I'm a high-falutin' snobby bitch because I use a word they don't know, and are too lazy to look up, is not my frakking (sp?) problem.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:31:41 -0800

But anyway, why argue against knowing more words? I'm not arguing against knowing the words, I'm arguing against using them if there's a synonym that's more commonly used.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:33:06 -0800

I'm arguing against using them if there's a synonym that's more commonly used. They don't teach discretion in high school.

By: atrazine

atrazine — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:33:46 -0800

"You know, I'm a laissez faire kinda guy..." The girl immediately behind him lets out a loud "Eeewwwwwwww!" Maybe she just objected to neoliberalism?

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:45:08 -0800

I'd like to see the 100 words that non-rich, non-white high school graduates should know then. I couldn't find a whole lot in the original list that consistently suggested wealth or whiteness, but nevertheless, I thought I'd try my hand at this task: illustrious, snacks, panoply, piece, chop, super, silverfish, egregious, hypertrophy, detriment, collie, whoa, romulan, fortitude, calumny, impresario, whoops, incur, quixotic, lugubrious, shampoo, tremulous, hamster, clamster, corpulence, pastiche, yodeller, mastication, pocket, nasty, fancy, prancy, clancy, gregarious, devastate, effusive, bulbasaur, hysteria, wisteria, opulent, gingerly, oh, demonstrative, gobsmacked, elbow, chronological, ferrous, muppet, numinous, pretty gay, ungulate, prestidigitator, granfaloon, pube, nicety, vermillion, navigatrix, ample, jackanape, jackalope, jackalopette, strop, mollusk, toast, vascillate, terrestrial, crap, n00b, edelweiss, omphaloskeptic, mendacious, landlocked, querulous, rasterize, palindrome, yolk, deleterious, cylindrical, libation, invigorate, balls, ballsy, ballsily, ballsiest, ballsery, Patricia Balls-Smith, fulminate, virulent, keratin, zesty, credence, acrimony, velour, salubrious, oscillation, flense, chapped, locomote, stellastarr*, recapitulate I'm gonna sell a book is what I'm gonna do.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:49:16 -0800

I think I'd smack someone on the noggin for using words like; inculcate, bowdlerize, and jejune. Hey, bowdlerizers play an important (if minor) role in just about every Jasper Fforde novel! Step off!

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:57:11 -0800

what kind of lobotomized simian office do you work in where the phrase "tangentially" would raise an eyebrow Ok, a more accurate description was my coworkers were mocking me for my propensity to use five-dollar words in the place of 5-cent ones.

By: Quietgal

Quietgal — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:01:00 -0800

Moiety: quite commonly used in shop-talk among chemists (e.g., "hydrophobic moiety"). Hear it pretty regularly around here. Can't recall ever hearing it used by normal people, though.

By: Rumple

Rumple — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:19:32 -0800

Yeah, I use Moiety all the time, it's used as a technical kinship term in Anthropology. But I wouldn't say all high school students need it.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:22:43 -0800

A classmate in university had a tongue-twister that he used on students with a Chinese/Japanese accent to good effect. (yes, it's somewhere between mean and racist but I think he was really trying to help them on some level): Molarity, Molality, Morality, (Professor) Moriarty. So I guess you could add Moiety to the list.

By: lonefrontranger

lonefrontranger — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:10:24 -0800

this thread demands the 'nerdfight' tag. that is all.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:24:07 -0800

"...unless 99% of listeners understand a word when you use it, it's pretty stupid to go ahead and do so anyway." Did you know the Esquimeaux have 137 words for "bullshit"?

By: Justinian

Justinian — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:19:42 -0800

Step off, ziggurat haters. If you can't use that word, how do you describe where the entrance the fifth Vault of Night quest in House Kundarak is located? On top of that multi-level pyramid thingie? NO. You say, VON5 is on the ziggurat in House K. Haters.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:19:47 -0800

exlotuseater: some of my favorite words. Some of mine.

By: reklaw

reklaw — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:22:52 -0800

When such a situation arises, you've really got to go with that word. People aren't idiots: they'll get it from context. Or you'll explain it. Either way, you're showing them respect, which cannot be said for a speaker who dumbs everything down for the benefit of some imagined "99% of listeners." Well, I fully support you if there's a word you just can't live without and you explain it inside dashes or brackets, but I don't think that situation comes up too often. It's just putting it out there all of a sudden that I object to - it's jarring, it's pretentious, it's like a little linguistic "fuck you" to the reader. Note that this doesn't mean that you shouldn't use technical words where they're useful and will be understood - if you're writing for Farming Today, feel free to use technical words for tractor parts, as long as you keep them out of writing for a general audience and everyday speech. The pompous, over-verbed language of business, in particular, has a way of seeping out into day-to-day culture that really shits me, as do words that people think they're so clever for knowing, like "schadenfreude". It's language-as-social-status, not communication.

By: rtha

rtha — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:41:22 -0800

The pompous, over-verbed language of business, in particular, has a way of seeping out into day-to-day culture that really shits me, as do words that people think they're so clever for knowing, like "schadenfreude". It's language-as-social-status, not communication. I'll agree with you on the business language thing - it's just so much jargony bullshit. It's ugly and usually intentionally obfuscatory. But schadenfreude? Invent me an English word (just one, please, not a sentence or phrase) that means the same thing. For the record, I don't think I'm "clever" for knowing it. I like words; I like to look things up. Sue me. While language can be - and is - used as a class/social signifier, I'll still argue that the listener can do their part and crack open a dictionary. I had a miserable teacher in elementary school who - gasp - refused to do our work for us. If we didn't know what a word meant, we had to look it up.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:48:42 -0800

I agree with rtha about schadenfreude being a good word to know, and useful to boot. On the other hand, I have a friend who has said it approximately 150 times in the past 6 months, which is approximately 145-149 instances more often than it was actually merited, so I can sympathize with reklaw as well.

By: MikeMc

MikeMc — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:04:06 -0800

Oh, and GuyZero, what kind of lobotomized simian office do you work in where the phrase "tangentially" would raise an eyebrow, let alone stop a meeting? You should have been there when my use of the word "prattle" caused a five minute meeting stoppage.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:11:20 -0800

Hmmm... In sixth grade, I called my teacher an "autocratic megalomaniac." Wow. I caught all kinds of kids using the words after his amazingly inappropriate and overly dramatic response to my voicing my opinion. Truthfully, my vocabulary is quite good, due to my excessive reading. Oh, and my ability to winkle out the definitions from the context, which seems a dying skill. My problem? Books don't exactly teach one to PRONOUNCE them properly. I used to really tickle a friend, who was the Dean of Communications at a local college...

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:14:55 -0800

Oh. I would have been jejune then, right?

By: Andrew Brinton

Andrew Brinton — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:24:36 -0800

This is exactly why metal is so educational I was never big on metal, so I had to learn all my big words from Bad Religion songs.

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:25:47 -0800

This list would have been more interesting if it had divided language into The 10 Most Important categories and then chose the 10 most useful/interesting words for each.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:10:57 -0800

Loquacious? That gauche, anti-abstemious, churlish, bellicose, fatuous, obsequious, feckless, supercilious, vacuous, chromosome-challenged paradigm of bowdlerizing chicanery? I abjure this lexicon, and refuse to kowtow to its totalitarian orthography.

By: rob511

rob511 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:19:49 -0800

I figure that I knew about half of these when I graduated from Wichita Southeast, home of the Golden Buffaloes. Or, as American Heritage would have it, the Aureate Ungulates. ("Gimme an A!" "A!"...)

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:36:38 -0800

"Your search - arizona, high school principal, teacher, pedagogue - did not match any documents." Citation please? It was probably lost in the transcription, languagehat. Replace "pedagogue" with "paedophile" and you get a few hundred hits.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:38:13 -0800

I like how "kowtow" and "obsequious" are included. Not to mention "plagiarism." I've seen most of these words before in other books!

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:08:52 -0800

juv3nal: Thank you. I am embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of nor seen that. I'm very excited.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 22:03:50 -0800

Has anyone ever heard jejune used in any context except for this list? Yes. I first encountered the word in a Calvin and Hobbes strip, in which Calvin refers to the standard-issue snowmen in his neighborhood. When I had to write my standard law school admissions essay in the past year, after three or four swings at it, I finally settled on "Calvin & Hobbes" teaching me vocabulary and philosophy and setting me on an obsessive course for both. Tonight, on my way home from a free show of the MET Opera in Central Park - full of non-whites and the non-rich, I might add - my friend told me a story of how he tried to intentionally fail a private school interview as a child. He talked about Calvin & Hobbes. The interviewer loved it, and they accepted him. As for me, I got into Georgetown, which is far better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, or even a dull one. Turns out we don't need fancy education, necessarily, to learn what certain words are. We just need to stop thinking that when somebody says something we don't know, that they're pretentious jack-asses trying to prove how much better they are. I didn't know every word in the list (I missed about five) and I don't think the list is by any means difinitive. It's meant to sell a book. My parents recently sent me a Marilyn Vos Savant book entitled Growing Up which details everything she believes a child should know and do by the time they are 18. It is very clearly based on her own idealized childhood, and is of course bullshit. But that doesn't mean that there aren't useful things to be gleaned from it. Let me say this in no uncertain terms. If you are one of the people bitching about people using words that you don't know, where you believe there to be synonyms "close enough" to avoid their usage, then you are being willfully ignorant. Words have different connotations (subtle meanings, for the small-word folk) and specific contexts to warrant their place in different usages. If you find this troubling, then the problem is entirely - entirely - with you. You are the one who thinks other people's education, or simply greater life experience, is an issue, and not the other way around. The problem is with you. Kindly fornicate off now.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:20:37 -0800

Make me, you great raving omphaloskeptic!

By: Wolof

Wolof — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:25:05 -0800

What, no "limn"? /Michiko

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 01:27:28 -0800

If you are one of the people bitching about people using words that you don't know It's not about which words I know or don't know. Heck I love words. But everyday conversation doesn't warrant it. For everyday conversation, oftentimes synonyms are "close enough." That's not being willfully ignorant, that's being respectful to the people you're talking to. Not everyone has the opportunity to learn what connotation means. Not everyone who has that opportunity needs or wants to take advantage of it. When I go to the doctor, I don't want a diagnosis filled with jargon I don't understand. My doctor understands that and frames any such discussion in terms I can grasp. Using a "five dollar word" when a synonym is close enough is like the doctor choosing to use jargon even when they know you won't understand. Sure there are specific situations where nothing else will accurately describe what they are talking about, but generally that's not true. If my doctor does this all the time, it isn't making an issue of his education or greater life experience; it's making an issue of the fact that he's being a dick.

By: Dillonlikescookies

Dillonlikescookies — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:49:48 -0800

I remember reading in the local newspaper about a woman who had recently moved to the neighbourhood. She had been living there for a couple of weeks before word got around that she was, in fact, a practicing pediatrician, and some local/s took it open themselves to spraypaint her house and car with "Pedo!' (sic) and "go home!" and many other slogans not fit for print. Suffice to say, she was most distraught, and a collective slap of the forehead was heard as the city read its paper the next day. Sigh. There's no saving some people from their own ignorance.

By: phrits

phrits — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:55:20 -0800

My dad and I had a fun email conversation about this list last week or so. I was saddened by my inability to smoothly work sesquipedalian into a sentence. And antebellum is one of those like ziggurat that just really isn't that relevant any more. Do we have pretentious words for the era before Dubya, before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," or before the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 04:52:26 -0800

juv3nal, why would you use the word "opportunity" when "chance" would be just as good? You think you're better than us?

By: argybarg

argybarg — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 06:40:08 -0800

Bizarre how people act as if this list said "100 words every high school student should memorize in a rote fashion." It suggested that they should recognize the words. I think I would have recognized about 85% at graduation Why? Because I read a lot and fairly widely. Because my family talked up words at home, even breaking out the dictionary to settle arguments. No, these words don't crop up in conversation. Is conversation the only use of language? If we want to read the journals of Lewis and Clark, or the writings of Samuel Johnson, or film reviews in the New Yorker, or summaries of legal cases, we'll need to know these words. Are these things that only specialists should be able to do? Imagine if everyone around you had access to this level of language. I'm not saying that everyone would be dropping "pecuniary" for no reason, but that everyone knew these words and, at the perfect spot, used them. Everyone you knew could move among linguistic communities -- "low" and "high." and translate. That would be cool.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:41:20 -0800

You think you're better than us? Naw. Just better than you, Mr. Nog.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:30:02 -0800

Touché! If that french was too esoteric for the rest o' you proles, I'll helpfully provide the English translation: "(I am) Touchy!"

By: flippant

flippant — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:30:13 -0800

As a Norwegian university student of 23, I knew 71 and could guesstimate another ~10. Some of them were ... esoteric, to say the least.