This is proving to be a very busy week, so I will make this word of the week a short one.

Proliferation: Rapid reproduction, multiplication or growth in numbers, an overabundance.

An example of usage: Andrew cannot comprehend the proliferation of things on his to-do list. Try this one on for size in your conversations today. It is not an obscure word, but very useful.

It’s that time again. Reminds me of the cartoon, Animaniacs from the early 90′s where Yakko would say that about the wheel of morality.  Anyway today’s word is applicable to reminising.

Gerontologist: a person who studies old people.

I am sure any study of the elderly or senior is sure to involve a lot of stories fableized into lore. I saw this word used recently in context a month ago when reading NTM07-43 put out by the FINRA–the things you do when you work for a registered investment adviser.  This document described, among other things, someone who helps the elderly play for their financial future being called a “certified financial gerontologist”. WHAT? why? I don’t know who would want such a title. Apparently there is a big problem with people calling themselves specialists with big fancy titles, when they really have no justification for such a title. If it tells me one thing it is that you should look for the wall of diplomas when you visit an “expert”. Now you too can clearly extend your knowledge of English, and aged human, with this splendid word.

It’s time for the practical vocabulary lesson for the week. This week’s word is: (more…)

Ok, these words are drifting from the obscure to technical mumbo jumbo. Enough of the stuff you won’t ever say outside of a trivial pursuit party. This word of the day, you can use today.

remuneration – Being paid a wage

This is

a fancy lawyer word that literally means paid for doing something as in a wage. It is similar to compensation, but it specifically refers to monetary compensation. You often see this in places where it is inconvenient to say “we paid them money”. In a disclaimer for a testimonial you might read, “participates have been remunerated” instead of “we paid them money to say nice things”. You can see the appeal for such obscurity. But I said you can use this word in everyday life. Well, there are many ways, but I will give you one you can do today. If you have a job, you get paid for it, Right? (If you don’t, you need a new job) So, today being October 1, or payday, go ask your employer for your remuneration for a job well done. You will get what is coming to you.

Mohorovicic discontinuity – The rock between the earth’s crust and the mantle about 30 km below the surface.

Joshua Hall taught me this one, but he didn’t use it in the course of everyday conversation. (I am still waiting for a practical use.) I have no idea how you could use this term outside the realm of geology, but here is what this thing is: Mr. Mohorovicic discovered this area of the earth in early 1909, and it was promptly named after him. It is in the lithosphere of the earth, and serves as the boundary between the mesosphere and the asthenosphere under the ocean. Many Sci-Fi novels and TV shows reference this area, but I think only as an obscurity to give the author creditability in the scientific realm. You may see this written as Mohorovicic’s discontinuity, but I think that was a space somewhere in his head. Maybe between the practical and “I can use this at a party to impress people” nervous centers where obscure things are filtered and… Hey… I think that I have a discontinuity in that area too! Maybe Mr. Mohorovicic will be best known a hundred years later for the brain condition that he epitomized.

Not a single word this week.

Illocutionary force: the property of an utterance with the intention to cause a certain act.

Again a linguistic nerdy term, my wife is loving these posts. This is one of my favorites though. Here is an example: If I come to your house in the dead of winter and I say “Man, it sure is cold in here.” I could be making a simple statement of fact– “My body nervous sensory is detecting a displeasing lack of thermal energy.” If you would respond with a raised eyebrow, you are not catching the illocutionary force. What I likely mean is, “Turn up the heat, yo!” I intend you to perform an act, not to agree with me about the temperature. In many places it is considered more polite to make a statement of fact rather than a request for action when you are a guest. In this way you are not imposing upon your host, but you act as if it was their idea to turn up the heat.

My grandmother is a master of this concept. She might say, “Doesn’t it seem disorganized in here?” Does she really want an answer…. not likely. But this is not simply a rhetorical question. She expects me to clean something up or she wouldn’t have said anything. That implied action is the illocutionary force. Now that you know the great power of these words, may the force be with you.

*cue theme song* And now it’s time once again for Andrew’s word of the week.

Agglutination: the process of adding affixes to a word root to change meaning.

My very intellectual linguistic wife will be proud of this week’s word because I picked up yet another tidbit from her cryptic linguistic geek-speak. 

English does this when you add a suffix or prefix to a word to change it’s meaning. Disassemble for example is the opposite of assemble when you add the prefix “dis” making it an agglutination. Destroy is not an agglutination because “stroy” is not a morpheme by itself. So that is almost the extent of my linguistic knowledge. Refer to my wife for more cryptic gobbledygook on the forming of languages.

Sesquippedalious: Comes from “sesquipedalian” meaning a long word (literally “a foot and a half long” in Latin)

I can’t imagine an extra-long hot-dog stand called Sesqippedalious’, but it would be clever. If I ever decide to have a cart in the State Fair, that is what I will call it. You can come buy a dog, and get a healthy dose of vocabulary. Thanks so much for your support of… my .. um dream to provide nourishment and vocabulary to the ignorant masses through pork products…. hmm.. Maybe I will stick to buying taffy at the fair.  Because you are wondering, Yes, I have actually used this word before. In fact it was featured in a script that I helped produce for an Informal sketch “Spatula Hands and the Super Team”. “Poetic Justice” is a super hero leader whose only power is a verbose and superlative command of the English language. He uses sesqippedalious in his attack at the end. Now where did I put that video…

Antidisestablishmentarianism : In British History. A counter movement opposed to proposals to remove the Anglican Church’s status as the state church of England (the disestablishment of the state church). Why couldn’t they just be establishmentarians? If I am against those against something, I am for it.

Ok so here it is again. The church is establishment. To remove it, dis establishment. People want to remove it, dis establisment arian. The opposition to those people,  anti  dis establishment arian. And finally becoming a movement, anti dis establishment arian ism.

A little overkill of a word if you ask me. Maybe they were just going for a long word. I guess it is easier to say than Proestablishmentarian.

I think I heard this word  in elementary school, though I likely had no idea what it was. I have since learned the meaning. In fact, my wife was impressed last week that I knew the history of this word. She had heard it before, but thought it was made up, until I flexed my knowledge of the obscure and absurd.

I am going to stop posting stupid words that I made up and post real words.  So here goes.

Floccinaucinihilipilification “the act of catigorizing something as worthless trivia”

Allan Kennedy and I came across this word in 2002 one night as we were bored and looking up Pinky and the Brain quotes. The Brain often uses multisyllabic superlatives when a diminutive subordinate would suffice. We quickly committed it to memory as it is so unique and one of the only words that by using it, you are fully practicing it. My spell checker doesn’t like it, but it shows up in Google and wikipedia as a real word. I am not suggesting that you will actually be able to use it in everyday speech, but you will get raised eyebrows on the off chance that you can use it.