I learned a new word today.Literati.
(Not to be confused with the Illuminati - a sort-of secret society that is both myth and possibly real, immortalized in the Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie.)
I discovered this word in an email from my mother and so promptly looked it up in the dictionary (like she taught me to).
Definition: 1. persons of scholarly or literary attainments; intellectuals (courtesy of dictionary.com) 2. The literary intelligentsia (courtesy of the American Heritage Dictionary) 3. Also refers to a type of bonsai tree, a style of painting, Confucianism, and a Scrabble game (courtesy of wikipedia.com)
I have a thing about collecting words. Some of my favorite book related words are colporteur (a peddler of books - my job) and bibliophile (a person who loves or collects books -my obsession). Some of my favorite non-book related words are surly (churlishly rude or bad-tempered - what I often feel but try not to be), tragic (extremely mournful, melancholy, or pathetic - a word WAY overused by local college students), lollygag (to waste time by puttering aimlessly; dawdle - this one mostly because of A League of Their Own and Tom Hanks's immortal words "You lollygag around the infield. You lollygag around the outfield. What does that make you? LOLLYGAGGERS!"), and vivacious (lively; animated; gay - and no, not just because the word gay is in the definition). Those are not my only favorite words, but they're the ones I could think of at this moment.
Last word of the day - Sonyak. Sounds like it should be the name
of a Japanese electronics brand, but instead, it's a word of made-up genius that my family uses. It should be used in this way: "Those jeans are SOnyak." As in Bad. Can also be used as a name. I once named a fish that.
http://www.myfavoriteword.com/
ReplyDeletehave you seen this?
here are my words, in no particular order:
agita
amuck
copious
doily
humdinger - used as baseball lingo
ok i guess they are in alphabetical order but entirely accidentally.
You know, there's a great baseball series for kids called Sluggers. I love it because they use baseball lingo in the text, and then on the sidebar of the page, they define the word, so kids can learn baseball vocabulary! The series is by Loren Long and Phil Bildner. It used to be called Barnstormers (not sure why) but then got renamed Sluggers when the series was released in paperback. For kids 8/9-11/12.
ReplyDeleteAlso, love that agita is first on your list. Alphabetical or no. :)
my favorite word: chimerical - something so wonderful it could only be a fantasy or, as merriam webster defines it: existing only as the product of unchecked imagination : fantastically visionary or improbable
ReplyDeleteHmm, reminds me of one of my most disturbing customer encounters at my old bookstore. A woman ran in, gasping for breath, eyes darting everywhere, seeking asylum. "What's wrong?" I asked. "They're chasing me!" she sobbed. "Who are?" I asked with alarm. " The Illuminati. Hide me, please!"
ReplyDeleteI also love lollygag. Or lallygag, as I've sometimes heard it called.