A Curious Little Blog

A few smaller categories of vocabulary words to close out this brief series. "Gnomic" and "sententious" both describe someone who writes or speaks in aphorisms, while an "atticism" is a concise and elegant expression, not necessarily aphoristic. A "sybarite" is someone devoted to pleasure, while a "feckless" person has no sense of responsibility or is just lazy.  "Otiose" can describe someone at leisure, or a lazy person; or it can mean ineffective, futile, or useless -- I'm surprised we don't see this word more often, as it seems to cover a number of common insults. I found three words that begin with the prefix "pleo-," whose meaning I did not know before.  A "pleonasm" is the use of unnecessary words, such as "will and testament" -- which essentially mean the same thing -- or "burning fire."  "Pleochroic" describes something (often a crystal) that appears to be...

I seem to have come across an unusual number of words associated with the heavens (literal or metaphorical) and with religion, Christianity specifically.  This is a little odd because I haven't read any theology at all -- these words all came from books on other subjects. supernal - celestial or divine welkin - the sky beatific - blissful or bestowing bliss empyrean -  the highest heaven.  (In spite of its -an ending, this word is actually a noun, not an adjective.  It was an ancient term for a region containing pure fire -- the element that rises the most -- and was adopted by Christians.) numinous - spiritual; supernatural; mysterious; beyond comprehension paraclete - an advocate or intercessor; when capitalized, the Holy Spirit theophany - an appearance of a god to a person afflatus - inspiration, especially a divine imparting of knowledge.  (This word comes from the Latin meaning "to blow on," so it has the bad association in my mind with som...

For today, I have some words that describe sounds, and others that are adjectival words, mostly derived from substances -- common substances, but uncommon words. Sounds: ululate - to howl pule - to cry in the thin voice; whimper sough - to make a rushing, rustling, or murmuring sound.  (I imagine the sough of wind in the boughs.) sursurrus - a whispering or rustling sound vagitus - the cry of a newborn.  (I can think of all kinds of metaphorical applications for this.) Materials: ligneous - woody flocculent - wooly coriaceous - leathery margaritaceous - pearly velutinous - velvety horrent - bristly lacustrine - of lakes telluric - terrestrial chthonic - infernal or ghastly  

Years ago, I decided that if I was going to learn foreign language vocabulary, I should also put some effort into learning more English vocabulary.  Therefore, I started writing down words that I didn't know when reading.  The first book for which I did this, "Empire of the Inca" by Burr Cartwright Brundage, provided a good start -- I got a good 20 words out of that book.  (It was as difficult to read as the vocabulary was obscure.) After I had accumulated more words, I started noticing that they fell into categories, which I suppose is inevitable.  I present to you, therefore, some vocabulary words describing immature and superficial people: "Callow" and "sophomoric" both mean "immature."  "Jejune" means childish or unsatisfying.  It is the key word in a great exchange between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in " Love and Death ": - That is incredibly jejune. - That's jejune?  - Jejune!  - You have the temerity to...

I have a new idea for a business:  I will borrow tractors from farmers when they don't need them, paying them a small fee.  Then, I will lend them out to farmers who do need them, collecting enough to cover the fee I pay plus to make a profit for myself.  After borrowing one tractor, I don't think it will be safe to lend it out, because I don't know if the owner will want it back in a short time or a long time.  Therefore, I will just store the first tractor I borrow, and lend out the next nine, keeping the one in reserve. Question:  after I have borrowed ten tractors and lent nine, how many tractors are in existence?  The answer seems obvious:  ten, one in my reserve and nine out on loan.  But while this seems obvious when dealing with tractors, when it comes to money I get a quite different answer.  After borrowing $10 and lending $9, I am told that there are $19 in existence.  This troubles me. I used to think I understood the cre...

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand I knew about Ayn Rand a long time ago, and I read "The Virtue of Selfishness" in high school. I wasn't too impressed with it, and Objectivism seemed a fringe movement, so I didn't make an effort to read her more famous works. Two things changed my position. The first was reading an article in which the author criticized Rand's followers for misreading her (he was completely wrong, it turns out). The second was the discovery that Alan Greenspan and Paul Ryan are both big fans of Ayn Rand. If major public figures are influenced by her thought, I wanted to know more about it.   So I read "Atlas Shrugged," her largest and most famous novel. The first thing you would notice about this book, whether you read it or not, is that it is extraordinarily long. It is estimated at 645,000 words. By comparison, "Les Miserables" is only 531,000 words. "War and Peace" is 587,000. The Old Tes...