Now we know.

[slemslempike]

I looked up the words from the book, and I thought that I would post them here so that a) I might have a better chance of remembering and b) people can judge me for not knowing them and c) other people can say that they too were previously unknowing. A few I roughly knew from context but wanted to know properly (uxorious, synecdoche) but most were completely baffling.

irenic - conducive to peace
uxorious - overly submissive to a wife
gravamen - grievance, basis of a legal action
strabismus - eye misalignment
bibulous - given up to the consumption of alcohol
adipose - pertaining to fat
adumbrate - give a sketchy outline of, to indistinctly foreshadow
lineaments - facial features
sidereal - relating to stars
sempiternal - dateless, no known beginning
meniscus - curved surface of liquid in a narrow diameter tube
noumenal - unknowable
penumbra - the area of a shadow in partial vision, the lighter part of an eclipse's shadow
chiaroscuro - use of light and dark in a painting
apophthegms - short pithy instructive saying
farouche - fierce, wild
synecdoche - referring to a concept by part of it
apian - relating to bees
monad - one, a unit
afflatus - creative inspiration
Procrustes - Greek guy with an adjustable bed
Ziggurat - step pyramid from Ancient Mesapotamia

I like sempiternal a lot, and noumenal. I am probably not going to remember any of them sufficiently to use them myself, but perhaps if I meet them again in writing it won't take me out of it.

Wednesday. What happens on Wednesdays?

Comments

[girlofprey.livejournal.com]

I knew maybe three of those, and not very well. I think I have the fourth one.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Ah, that sempiternal gravamen. I am lacking in the antepenultimate one, sadly.

[cosmolinguist]

I hardly knew any of these: a few from being a science geek: sidereal, meniscus, penumbra.

I think Rachel and I once had a discussion trying to sort out the differentce between synecdoche and metonymy. I don't know if we ever managed it. :-)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I am rather unsciency, so had no clue about those. They are rather nice words though.

[cosmolinguist]

They are lovely, and I think meniscus and penumbra have meanings nearly as cool as their sound/appearance.

[unhobbityhobbit.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I knew adipose! *feels smart* It never even occurred to me that there might be a word for being overly submissive to a wife.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I am fast learning that there appear to be at least three words for everything.

[cosmolinguist]

That is one of the things I love about English. It really does steal words from everybody, so you may well have (say) an Anglo-Saxon, a Latin, and a Norse word for something, all co-existing and perhaps slowly gaining different meanings or connotations, perhaps falling out of use or becoming regional idioms.

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

This should be a poll! I am so excited about these words that I am commenting without reading other comments, so I'm sorry if someone else said that.

Okay, I knew: bibulous, adipose, adumbrate, lineaments, meniscus, penumbra, chiarascuro (because I took a film class once, ha), synecdoche, monad, afflatus, and Ziggurat. I could only define bibulous, lineaments, meniscus, chiaroscuro, synecdoche, and monad offhand, though. (Yes, I tested myself. Word geek!) A few of them are what I consider genuinely 19th century words; I've only ever seen "bibulous" in mid-19th (mostly women's!) writing.

This was such fun. Thank you.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oooh, you know loads! You clever thing. Bibulous was one that I knew when I'd looked it up, and had the whole book not made me so uncertain I would have been fine with it.

You're very welcome! I have a vague resolution to look things up more, after a while of realising that lots of words I thought I knew I only knew in context, so there may well be more posts. Not for a bit though, as my next reading is one of the Meg Cabot Mediator books, and she's not so great with the vocabulary stretching.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Wednesdays are when I go to karate!

I've been using 'uxorious' wrong all these years. I thought it meant being a submissive wife.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

That sounds like fun! When I am at uni I go swimming on Wednesdays sometimes. I think I'm too lazy for karate though, and would be frustrated at having to work up to being a martial arts machine, rather than becoming one automatically with the white suit.

But that's a natural state of things! You only need uxorious as a word because being submissive to a wife is so wrong.

[lsugaralmond.livejournal.com]

I heart the English language. I bet no other language has a word for curved surface of liquid in a narrow diameter tube. We are the bestest.

Also, I only knew one of them! Adipose. I thought Uxorious and Lineaments meant something entirely different to what they actually mean (not exactly sure what I thought they meant, but definitely not those things!) and the rest of them I have never heard of, and would swear you are making them up in a hilarious prank to make us all feel intellectually inferior. Except obviously you would never do that.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I thought Will Self was making them up in an hilarious prank to make me feel stupid when I was reading the book, but it turns out not, I am just not as clever as I like to think.

Probably we get to share that word with other languages, because it's a sciencey thing, but we do indeed rock.

[tubewalker.livejournal.com]

This is a fabulous list, holly_lama sent me to look, may I add you?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

That would be lovely.

[tubewalker.livejournal.com]

Ta.

[cosmolinguist]

He's great; I hope you like him. He was way excited about words and I tried to explain metonymy and synecdoche, which is cool.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I knew some of them and recognised others (you know, that state of mind where you think you know what something means until someone asks you) but not all of them.

I did know Procrustes, though (not personally, thankfully). He has a brief appearance in Mary Renault's The Bull From The Sea which I've just finished reading. Calling his bed 'adjustable' might be described as rather black irony...

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I no longer remember the context in which Procrustes was invoked, but it's a brilliantly gory story.

That's exactly the state of mind I have about words the entire time.

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

I'm going to own up now and say I don't recognise a single one of them. I can be your slack jawed yokel LJ friend.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oh good. I am not the only one baffled by them. I am in awe of people saying that they know so many.

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

cough liars cough

:)

I know a fair few but not all

[jinty]

I always forget what 'uxorious' means - have only recently got it into my head that it means something to do with a wife. And 'afflatus' I would definitely assume was to do with farting not inspiration.

Is it 'stabismus' or 'strabismus'? Also, 'chiaroscuro' surely.

I love the words Procrustes and Ziggurat.

Re: I know a fair few but not all

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Yes, strabismus (as in, 'Dr S, whom god preserve, of Utrecht), and that is correct spelling of chiaroscuro (clear/obscure). No ph in apothegm.

I not only know most of those, I have been known to employ several of them in conversation.

Re: I know a fair few but not all

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Strabismus and chiaroscuro are my typing, but apophthegms is thus in the book, and pops up in several reasonably safe places online, so is it perhaps an unpreferred spelling?

Re: I know a fair few but not all

[oursin.livejournal.com]

The OED online gives it as a possible spelling, so I guess it's permissible (if poss a bit archaic?)

Re: I know a fair few but not all

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Phew, thank you Oursin, you have stopped me feeling like a frightful swotty Mrs Knowit. And you know about Dr Strabismus!

Re: I know a fair few but not all

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, strabismus and Chiaroscuro are my typing. I shall go and correct them.

Ziggurat is a great word to say. It seems like it should be a 70s guitar style.

New York Ziggurats

[jinty]

Re: I know a fair few but not all

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I only know the word Ziggurat because Rimmer in Red Dwarf likes to say "Up, up, up the Ziggurat!" when encouraging himself in his quest to become an officer.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Ooh, words!

I knew penubra cause it are a DS9 episode title and I looked it up when it came out and I knew not what the word meant. Also know Ziggurat from Star Trek. And monad from Doctor Who. Sciffy teach me words!

Physics or chemistry taught me noumenal and meniscus.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Sciffy is multi-purpose, clearly.

If I'd had more cool words in science I might have kept it up.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Farouche! That is the best word ever.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I like the sound of it (though it's just occured to me that I don't know if I know the correct pronunciation of any of these, which could lead to embarrassment), but I think it seems wrong for meaning wild. It should mean lazy.