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

[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.

[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.

[highlyeccentric]

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