Vocabulary Lesson.
Lately all I want to do is read and go swimming.
(Today I also got to see ALL my sisters and hang out in Faneuil Hall with them and Matt, which was also awesome, but now I just wanna read and go swimming.)
I'm reading Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen, which is one of those books you read very intensely and you get mad when someone interrupts you.
She is a marvelous writer, and has one of the best vocabularies I've seen, without being totally pretentious about it. And I pride myself on having a pretty good vocabulary. But. I've had to turn down the pages containing words I didn't recognize. The context usually gives a good idea of the word's meaning, but I like to know exact definitions.
Here we go:
Abstemious: Moderate, temperate.
"Leo has been notoriously abstemious in the matter of profanity since he grew out of the purely imitative toddler phase."
Priapic: Overly concerned with masculinity and male sexuality.
"He was carelessly flatulent and occasionally priapic, and in conversation he sometimes seemed to be a bigot, which proved to be completely inaccurate when you actually saw him with people who were black or gay or disabled."
Copacetic: Fine, completely satisfactory.
"Have you ever noticed that everything said in an English accent sounds intelligent and everything said in a Jamaican accent sounds copacetic?"
Ganja: Marijuana.
Spliff: Marijuana.
(Okay, so I'm not familiar with street names for drugs. But you knew that already.)
Prevaricator: A liar.
Edward Prevaricator is the name of one of the characters. He seems pretty honest so far, though.
(Today I also got to see ALL my sisters and hang out in Faneuil Hall with them and Matt, which was also awesome, but now I just wanna read and go swimming.)
I'm reading Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen, which is one of those books you read very intensely and you get mad when someone interrupts you.
She is a marvelous writer, and has one of the best vocabularies I've seen, without being totally pretentious about it. And I pride myself on having a pretty good vocabulary. But. I've had to turn down the pages containing words I didn't recognize. The context usually gives a good idea of the word's meaning, but I like to know exact definitions.
Here we go:
Abstemious: Moderate, temperate.
"Leo has been notoriously abstemious in the matter of profanity since he grew out of the purely imitative toddler phase."
Priapic: Overly concerned with masculinity and male sexuality.
"He was carelessly flatulent and occasionally priapic, and in conversation he sometimes seemed to be a bigot, which proved to be completely inaccurate when you actually saw him with people who were black or gay or disabled."
Copacetic: Fine, completely satisfactory.
"Have you ever noticed that everything said in an English accent sounds intelligent and everything said in a Jamaican accent sounds copacetic?"
Ganja: Marijuana.
Spliff: Marijuana.
(Okay, so I'm not familiar with street names for drugs. But you knew that already.)
Prevaricator: A liar.
Edward Prevaricator is the name of one of the characters. He seems pretty honest so far, though.