conuly | Adventures in Vocabulary!

Watching TV with the kids, and one character is the Dowager Empress.

Me: She's "dowager" because she's the widow of the previous Emperor.
Eva: Everybody knows that, Connie.
Me: ...no, I'm pretty sure they don't, in fact, know that. I'm not even sure where you learned it, or how, or why.
Eva: Yeah, you could be right. You know, I'm starting to think my friends have a really poor vocabulary. There's a whole lot of words I use that they don't seem to know.
Me: Feel my pain.

But seriously, one of the problems of knowing a lot of words is that you never know what words other people don't know. (Except inchoate. Fuck that word. I'm sure it just appeared out of nowhere one day and suddenly it was everywhere, like some weird practical joke on me.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

calimac

They know it if they've seen Downton Abbey.

On the other hand, the popularity of Downton Abbey (which as far as I know gets it right) doesn't seem to have stopped the avalanche of Americans who don't know how the nomenclature of British titles of nobility works.

From:

conuly

Does Downton Abbey actually explain what the word means or does it just use it and expect you to pick it up from context?

From:

siderea

Inchoate – a word I've used a lot more in the last few years – is a word whose time has truly come.

From:

conuly

One day it was everywhere. EVERYWHERE, and everybody just used it like it'd always been part of their active vocabulary.

From:

peoriapeoriawhereart

Vocabulary Gothic.

From:

wpadmirer

I had that same problem as a kid. I used words that no one else knew. My mother had an excellent vocabulary, and I read everything I could get my hands on. I'm still amused when sometimes a word comes out of me that I realize that the people I'm talking to don't recognize.

Tell Eva never to dumb down her speech!

From:

conuly

Tell Eva never to dumb down her speech!

Well, yes, unless you know what you're doing that only causes more problems than it solves. You're bound to overshoot and annoy your interlocuters even more.

From:

rhoda_rants

I am increasingly learning I assume I know what certain words mean but I definitely Do Not.

I watched 3 seasons of Downton Abbey and might have missed the bit where they explained it, but I definitely had been using "dowager" as "fancy old lady, I guess" without knowing the actual meaning. 0_0

From:

peoriapeoriawhereart

Well, it does mean that. She's fancy because she's planted her husband and her son can't control her. Which means her servants raised him well. Typically if she's younger she has suitors she has to arrange in a circular fashion so they shoot each other. Cf. Hunting at the country house.

From:

rhoda_rants

sigh

Okay, but my point is the original post seems to indicate there's a very specific meaning behind it that I didn't pick up on.

From:

peoriapeoriawhereart

_sorry

From:

conuly

Dowager does also mean "fancy old lady, I guess". It's the obvious extension from its older meaning of "widow with inherited property and/or titles from her deceased husband", since historically most of the people in that category (especially with the titles!) were fancy old ladies.

From:

readerjane

Thanks for the new word! I'd never heard of it either.

From:

melita66

I just had 2 cases of surprise vocab (to other people) from my just under 8 yo. He used "listing" to describe a weird feeling to a medical resident. I had to explain it to her. He'd been watching titanic simulation videos. Then his teacher, when discussing his vocab, gave the example that he'd used "literally." I managed to only think but not say, "really? I literally am not sure he's using it correctly."

From:

conuly

It's an intensifier, so he probably is.

It also means "having to do with letters".

From:

grammarwoman

Hee - I had the kid's problem of trying to pronounce words I only read and had never heard, and got the strangest looks, because English. (I mean, 'facetious' doesn't play well with phonetics, you know? Or 'minutiae'.)

From:

conuly

I mean, 'facetious' doesn't play well with phonetics, you know?

...yes, it does. I suspect, based on your use of "minutiae" as another example that you're talking about the ti- making the sound "sh", but the phonogram -ti(V) usually makes that sound.

From:

mab_browne

The number of times I've been informed about using words unfamiliar to my co-workers... generally it's good humored rather than sarcastic, so there's that I guess. I mean, they just pop out, you know?

From:

conuly

Yup.

From:

highlyeccentric

Did I mention anywhere that you might have read it about my family adventures with vocabulary last year? A particular stand-out was that my sister (10) has a therapy-issued Feelings Words chart, and adults are to encourage her to express her feelings in words.

Me, one morning: you look morose
Her: what?
Me: Morose. *turns to chart* It's not on here. Huh.

Repeat, with 'glum', 'despondent', 'apprehensive' and a whole range of others, mostly negative. We ended up having to make a separate list of Amy Feelings Words. I don't think she ever used them for herself, but she did take care, as I got more and more anxious preparing to leave the country, to use Amy Feelings Words when asking what was up with me that day.

From:

conuly

I don't recall this, but it's a charming story and I hope your sister is doing better with happier feelings, no matter how eruditely she expresses herself when discussing them.

From:

highlyeccentric

I think she is, yes. Or at least she's back to normal pre-teen levels of volatility, as opposed to Crisis Mode.

From:

adafrog

lolol

From:

gwydion

I used to slip a word the Middle schoolers were unlikely to know into my conversation/lessons every week. The seventh graders tended to become particularly enamored of "Scribe" every year.

From:

silveradept

That's going to be a lifelong issue, unfortunately. The good thing is, eventually the people get close enough to you that you can communicate, even if at times you feel like there's less precision than there should be.

From:

adrian_turtle

(Except inchoate. Fuck that word. I'm sure it just appeared out of nowhere one day and suddenly it was everywhere, like some weird practical joke on me.))

Oh, that came from Connecticut.

More seriously, I started seeing it a lot more often during GamerGate.

From:

elenbarathi.livejournal.com

Oh, do I share your pain. One reason I hang out online so much is because my friends here are mostly of 'average American' education, which translates to what I would consider adequate for an 8th grader. Not to put a nickle in the Rant Machine here, but it seems to me there's no point in most people going to academic school past age 14, when they'd do much better to be learning work skills. Anyone who WANTS more education can get it for themselves for free.

Hey, I dragged this over from Facebook for you; enjoy!

I Illustrated National Parks In America Based On Their Worst Review And I Hope They Will Make You Laugh (16 Pics) (https://www.boredpanda.com/one-star-reviews-into-illustrations-national-parks-amber-share/)

From:

conuly

I will definitely get to that link when I wake up and start saving my daylight.

From:

archersangel

pretty sure i've never come across inchoate before.

and i suppose i know a fair number of words. there was a quiz making the rounds a few years ago (maybe from a news paper or a university?) to see how many words a person knows. and if i recall, i knew the average (or maybe sightly higher than average) number.