List of Great or Exotic Words

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TheIT

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Fiftieth post, yay!!!


One has to be careful with regional slang because the meaning might vary in different regions. For example, in Illinois one shovels snow and scoops ice cream, while in Iowa one scoops snow and shovels ice cream. Personally, I like the Iowa attitude to ice cream better. ;)

What's the phrase? "Britain and the United States, two countries separated by a common language?" If you ever have a chance, try flipping through a British/American travel dictionary. It's an eye-opener. Some phrases have totally different connotations depending on where you are.

I'm with dblteam in that many of the words mentioned here are part of my vocabulary, so I wouldn't see a problem with including them in my writing as long as the word matches the narrative, setting or character. Having a street urchin talking like a university professor will quickly destroy my interest in the story since it doesn't make sense. Use the type of words that flow naturally in the story, and don't worry if they won't score high in Scrabble.

Oh, and to add a word to the list: Discombobulated - confused or upset.
 

reph

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TheIT said:
Oh, and to add a word to the list: Discombobulated - confused or upset.
Pshaw, as characters used to say in old books! Everybody knows "discombobulated" except a few unregenerate flibbertigibbets.
 

Mistook

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Questions for Reph.

But can you say of a working system, that it is fully combobulated?

If I am in a good mood, does that mean I am gruntled?

If I am behaving with charm and good manners, am I couth?
 

Jacquie

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some mental health contributions

my personal favourites are

confabulation - the art of pretending you know EXACTLY what you did last night (You see, officer, there must have been a break out at the local zoo, and I'd check that out if I were you, because there was a monkey and I"ll swear it had wings, and it was the monkey what made me swerve onto the footpath and so, you see, it wasn't my fault at all, officer, and you really need to check out that zoo . . . )

echolalia - repeating others words or phrases, ords or phrases, or phrases, phrases.

circumstantiality - talking at length before finally getting to the point, ususally in an overly detailed fashion.

catastrophising - the process of turning small events into disasters (he's 3 minutes late home because there's been a 16 car pileup at the local supermarket and he's right in the middle of it and dying and OH MY GOD I have to call the police)

So I'm thinking that the essence of a successful novelist is one who can practice the art of combining confabulation and catastrophising while avoiding echolalia like the plague, the plague, the plague, and trying to keep circumstantiality to an absolutely, best as you can, more or less complete minimum, really!
 

reph

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Don't go away disappointed, Ella. Drop down to the Words You Thought You Knew forum and take a peek at the brouhaha over "rantallion."

Mistook, if you don't feel like yourself today, are you Took?
 

Ella

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reph said:
Don't go away disappointed, Ella. Drop down to the Words You Thought You Knew forum and take a peek at the brouhaha over "rantallion."

Mistook, if you don't feel like yourself today, are you Took?

Thanks Reph, though to save other unlucky readers the half hour of (enjoyable, I do say) reading to find the reference, here's the link.


Will have to dig out my word book.
 

TheIT

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reph said:
Pshaw, as characters used to say in old books! Everybody knows "discombobulated" except a few unregenerate flibbertigibbets.

Reph, I have never flibbertied a gibbet in my entire life! ;)
 

reph

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Ella, I'm sorry. Complete instructions would have said the thread is called SHROFFAGE and it's usually sticking out on the main page.

Looking up "callipgyian" would mean getting off my big...
 

Danger Jane

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I don't use my vocabulary consciously. Generally the word that fits best, is most descriptive, goes in, and if it doesn't, I sit for a while trying to figure out what that word is. It usually is nothing too complicated, difficult to pronounce, or way multisyllabic.

Using big words for the sake of using big words is what you seem to be doing, albeit subconsciously. I know a million confusing words, but they almost never find their way to the page.
 

BlueTexas

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Monstropolous. I've only seen this word in print twice, and cannot find it in a single dictionary. I can't remember how it was used the first time, but when I came across it yesterday, it was as an adjective.
 

Ebelie

I've always enjoyed finding unfamiliar words in popular fiction - it's where a large part of my vocabulary has come from. Of course, being too lazy to bother looking up unknown words in the dictionary has led to some problems. For instance, it was only recently that I discovered that if someone said something enigmatically they weren't being forceful.

And as far as pronunciation goes, I did tell my partner that he was being "truckulent" once. Oops.
 

Greer

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Ebelie said:
And as far as pronunciation goes, I did tell my partner that he was being "truckulent" once. Oops.

As far as pronunciation goes, your pronunciation of truculent was correct.

As for connotation, I'm not sure your partner would be too happy. :)
 

Ebelie

Greer said:
As far as pronunciation goes, your pronunciation of truculent was correct.

As for connotation, I'm not sure your partner would be too happy. :)

Hm, then maybe it was "trusulent" that I said. You can see how confused all these big words have made me.

In any case you're right, he wasn't impressed.
 
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