I learned a new word today.
Kind of an amazing feat, in a world where five-cent words are thrown around as commonly as "y'all". And here, being the arrogant university student, I thought I had an excellent grasp of the most used words.
Sadly I was proven wrong. Whilst browsing the BBC online, I came across an article on Canadian Arctic sovereignty. Quite an interesting subject, and I was keen on interpreting the international press agencies' take on our situation. As I was reading through, I hit a word that triggered no recognition.
Vociferously.
I kept reading, being the ass that I am, but my conscience got the better of me.
"Uh, you don't recognize that word," it sighed. Somehow it knew it was in for a fight.
I paused for a moment, thinking back to that 'V' word. "Of course I know what it is," I countered. "I'm a fucking 3rd year university student, I think my vocabulary is more diverse than the BBC."
Still, the conscience was not impressed. "Listen, buddy, you may try to kid yourself out of this one, but face facts. You don't know what the word is. You haven't cornered the vocabulary market. Deal."
Shit. This is not at all how my inner self should address me. After a few moments sounding the 'V' word out like a 1st grader, I groaned aloud.
"You're right," I admitted, defeat echoing in my voice. "I'm stuck, I don't know for sure."
"Then look it up, dummy," came the response. "Learn something, for Christ's sake."
I trundled over to dictionary.com and got my answer.
Vociferously: Making, given to, or marked by noisy and vehement outcry.
Just as I thought...
4 comments:
This post is... uh... good.
Nothing Golden Stays
Just by looking at that word, one should be able to tell its meaning.
Voci(vocal) ferous (ferocious)
or maybe it's just that I spent 5 years majoring in English.
Still, glad to know one can learn something new everyday.
some fun vocabulary trivia (i learned this in my class -- history of the english language) ...
*the King James Version of the Bible contains a vocabulary base of some 8,000 words.
*the average educated person has a vocabulary of 12,000-15,000 words.
*william shakespeare's total vocabulary is estimated to have been close to 34,000 words.
ever since i learned those statistics, i have been curious as to the total number of words in my own vocabulary ...
give yourself a break... you cant be that smart all the time.
I learn new words all the time and sometimes go through the same battle you described. Its not as animated though and I speak sometimes in spanish when I wonder about a word.
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