Adventures in Vocabulary!

[conuly]

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.)

Comments

[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.

[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.

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[peoriapeoriawhereart]

_sorry