Jump to content

Menu

s/o 2011 books: vocab list of shame


Recommended Posts

Compound my shame. How many words of the list below do you know already?

 

This year, since Middle Girl has to look up words she doesn't know when she reads, I decided to do the same. Here's my list of words I didn't know from my 2011 book list.

 

My private rules: I didn't include words so obscure that they were noted in the text itself (thus I didn't have to look up anything from Shakespeare); and I included words whose meaning I had an idea of (like atavism) but wasn't sure of.

 

Please feel free to tell me which of these words you wouldn't have had to look up. My oldest daughter apparently was familiar with bint from Monty Python, confirming the value of her classical education.

 

wadmal

cisalpine

atavism

caravanserai

boubou

clart

mantic

cafard

pirogue

gabelle

poetaster

Boeotian

feculent

debouch

brummagem

puccoon

pucelage

wittol

farded

sett

ranunculus

corybantic

pelmet

estaminet

agalma

chibouk

palter

megrims

curule

peltast

pullulating

matutinal

endimanchee

bint

lie doggo

yashmak

jalousie

cracknel

hames

besom

peculation

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is it:

 

atavism

mantic

pirogue

feculent

debouch

pullulating

matutinal (thank you Word of the Day)

bint (thank you Spike)

besom (a word I learned from children's lit in the past five years)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So what exactly were you reading this year?

The biggest chunk of the list came from The Sot-Weed Factor. Barth seems to take special joy in showing off his command of obscure English.

 

Most embarrassing was finding later that sett was a vocabulary word in the first chapter of Middle Girl's second-grade Language Arts textbook. Apparently little English children are supposed to be familiar with badgers' lairs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The biggest chunk of the list came from The Sot-Weed Factor. Barth seems to take special joy in showing off his command of obscure English.
I love that book, but I obviously haven't retained much of the vocabulary over the ten years or so since last reading it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

pirogue -- but I'm from South Louisiana

bint -- used in Harry Potter later books, maybe?

megrims -- I read a good number of books set in the nineteenth century, and it also shows up occasionally when I'm researching remedies for my 10 year old.

 

The rest would have me going for context clues or a good dictionary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please feel free to tell me which of these words you wouldn't have had to look up. My oldest daughter apparently was familiar with bint from Monty Python, confirming the value of her classical education.

 

cisalpine

atavism

caravanserai

pirogue

poetaster

feculent

debouch

brummagem

sett

palter

megrims

pullulating

matutinal

bint

lie doggo

jalousie

besom

peculation

Link to comment
Share on other sites

cisalpine

atavism

caravanserai

pirogue

poetaster

feculent

debouch

brummagem

sett

palter

megrims

pullulating

matutinal

bint

lie doggo

jalousie

besom

peculation

 

 

Show off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

cisalpine

atavism

caravanserai

pirogue

poetaster

feculent

debouch

brummagem

sett

palter

megrims

pullulating

matutinal

bint

lie doggo

jalousie

besom

peculation

I believe we have a winner! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Compound my shame. How many words of the list below do you know already?

 

This year, since Middle Girl has to look up words she doesn't know when she reads, I decided to do the same. Here's my list of words I didn't know from my 2011 book list.

 

My private rules: I didn't include words so obscure that they were noted in the text itself (thus I didn't have to look up anything from Shakespeare); and I included words whose meaning I had an idea of (like atavism) but wasn't sure of.

 

Please feel free to tell me which of these words you wouldn't have had to look up. My oldest daughter apparently was familiar with bint from Monty Python, confirming the value of her classical education.

 

wadmal

cisalpine

atavism

caravanserai

boubou

clart

mantic

cafard

pirogue

gabelle

poetaster

Boeotian

feculent

debouch

brummagem

puccoon

pucelage

wittol

farded

sett

ranunculus

corybantic

pelmet

estaminet

agalma

chibouk

palter

megrims

curule

peltast

pullulating

matutinal

endimanchee

bint

lie doggo

yashmak

jalousie

cracknel

hames

besom

peculation

 

I'm not reading any other posts lest I inadvertently learn something before reading the list for myself. I'm bolding the words I know, and preparing to be embarrassed when I read everybody else's lists!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please feel free to tell me which of these words you wouldn't have had to look up.

 

caravanserai

boubou

sett

bint

 

 

Aside from sett, which I knew but not its spelling, these three are not actually English.

 

The other ones are very obscure.

 

I am disgusted by how many words I have to look up from children's books. To be fair, though, thereis a lot of military and boating lingo I am not familiar with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, friends, it seems I've made a couple of mistakes (but I bet Rivka didn't! She's smart!)...

 

I've looked up the words I was sure I knew and here are the words from that list about which I was dead wrong:

 

Pucelage (state of virginity)

Chibouk (a kind of a long-stemmed Turkish red clay pipe)

 

I thought 'pucelage' was a medical term, and I thought a chibouk was a boat of Inuit or Yupik origin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

wadmal YES

cisalpine

atavism YES

caravanserai YES

boubou

clart

mantic

cafard

pirogue (Isn't this some kind of little boat? But I'm not sure enough to give it a YES.)

gabelle

poetaster

Boeotian

feculent

debouch YES

brummagem

puccoon

pucelage

wittol

farded

sett YES

ranunculus (No, but at least I have seen this one. I don't know what it means, though.)

corybantic

pelmet

estaminet

agalma

chibouk

palter

megrims

curule

peltast

pullulating

matutinal

endimanchee

bint

lie doggo

yashmak

jalousie (I have seen this, but don't know what it is.)

cracknel

hames

besom (I have seen this one, too. No idea what it means.)

peculation

 

Dang. I though I had a good vocabulary. Apparently, not so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is it:

 

atavism

mantic

pirogue

feculent

debouch

pullulating

matutinal (thank you Word of the Day)

bint (thank you Spike)

besom (a word I learned from children's lit in the past five years)

 

Make that two words. Bint and besom. I'm wondering what words I can deduce. Like feculent (I thought surely I was wrong about that one.)

 

I just looked up 'pullulating' and I can report that it is not a dirty word.

 

Yeah. I can't let my 13 yo get a hold of this list. They will be dirty words once she gets done with them. Her favorite Latin word is 'facit'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I only knew:

 

cisalpine

atavism

pirogue

farded

palter

megrims

 

and to be completely honest I would have only known atavism in a multiple choice and I would have had to think of atavistic which I must have heard more than atavism. Many of the words were new to me, but I think I would have known some in context.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Make that two words. Bint and besom. I'm wondering what words I can deduce. Like feculent (I thought surely I was wrong about that one.)

 

 

 

Yeah. I can't let my 13 yo get a hold of this list. They will be dirty words once she gets done with them. Her favorite Latin word is 'facit'.

 

I would have guessed correctly on that one, but I didn't know it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most embarrassing was finding later that sett was a vocabulary word in the first chapter of Middle Girl's second-grade Language Arts textbook. Apparently little English children are supposed to be familiar with badgers' lairs.

 

Well yes. Little English children (and this little Australian) read all about badgers in Enid Blyton's books :)

 

I probably knew three or four others.

 

The rest I don't mind not knowing, lol.

 

Rosie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, this was a tough and humbling list. I only knew a few:

 

cisalpine (due to classical history study)

 

caravanserai (because this was the name of a favorite coffee emporium in Berkeley when I was a student, and I looked it up then)

 

feculent (never mind :D)

 

ranunculus (I putter in the garden)

 

yashmak (Mid-East studies)

 

The big question is, what's a "Buffy?"

 

Bill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...