Word Whore

[textualdeviance]

I saw this on grammar_whores and thought it should be made into a meme.

Bolding the ones I know off the top of my head.



by Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries

• 100 words that all high school graduates — and their parents — should know

BOSTON, MA — The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

"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. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."

The following is the entire list of 100 words:

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
ziggurat

Comments

[mekle.livejournal.com]

Ok. I have at least some idea to the definitions of more of those than I expected.

Not that I could pronounce half of them. (Without making you laugh your ass off, at least)

And I don't know that I could appropriately articulate said definitions.

What? Stop laughing at me! ;)

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

FWIW, some of those I know only vaguely, having read or heard them in context, rather than knowing a dictionary definition.

Have I ever told you the story of how I misused the word "prurient"? Oh, good times, those.

[mekle.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, you haven't. This I *must* hear at some point.

Sam and Max, Freelance Police quote:

[tcinseattle.livejournal.com]

woman: Can we have your word?
Max: Sure! Except our word is "unctuous!" So you won't get to use it very often.

[iolanthe-rosa.livejournal.com]

I knew them all except "abjure" (I thought it was to do without; turns out it's to go back on an oath. Good word!) I sort of know what mitosis is (something to do with cell division), but I'm sure whatever definition I came up with would be wrong in someway.

[iolanthe-rosa.livejournal.com]

You're right! I misread the definition, it's to go back "on oath," not an "an" oath.

[van.livejournal.com]

Okay, I know MOST of these words, but not because I went to high schoo, but because I am an avid and voraceous reader. Ugh. :(

[monkey5s.livejournal.com]

The only one for which I am clueless would be moeity. Moiety. Can't even SPELL the bugger! AR AR AR!

But truly, deeply, I have to express love for your awesome icon. Did you see that charming sign yourself, or did you find the icon online?

And the reason it rings so strongly with me, is that I work in a public library. One of our part-time workers, who is the mother of two boys in elementary and middle school, left me a note about a memorial plate we put into a book on CD. Her note had so many strange errors of spelling that it took me a rather long time to realize she actually did NOT give me the information that I required from her. I think I was so buffaloed by her spelling "accession book" as "assestions list" that the rest of it just... leaked out of my head.

No, I don't actually want to know how her boys are doing in English class.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

The sign was something captured by someone on the comm in question. Made me laugh so I had to icon it.