Perfectly good words insufficiently used.

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by piezoe, Sep 4, 2013.

  1. piezoe

    piezoe

    The Society for Prevention of Word Death
    is seeking nominations for good words too little used and in danger of falling into the archaic category in our dictionaries. We should make a serious effort to incorporate these fine words into our everyday lexicon.

    My nominations for today are:

    thingamajig
    denouement
    tenesmus -- very useful in its adj. form as in "What a tenesmal situation that was!"
    rigamarole
    impecunious
    peripatetic
    jingo -- as in "by jingo!", or in its original sense: "The Jingoes in Congress can't wait to start lobbing missiles across Assad's bow!"
    jingoism -- if ever there was a word more appropriately applied to the U.S., I can't imagine what it would be.
    gainsay
    fictive -- there can be no more use adjective in the Politics and Religion Forum than "fictive."
    gauche
    hobnob
    vex

    Please add to the list as you see fit.
     
  2. antidisestablishmentarianism
     
  3. nitro

    nitro

    Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

    <iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Rg6vc66foXE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
  4. piezoe

    piezoe

    Perhaps there are a few words we would all be better off without. Words that perhaps enjoyed a one-time use and now need to die. Example: "misunderestimate."
     
  5. blakpacman

    blakpacman

    penultimate
     
  6. New words to nominate:

    Majoretorially-to summarize a majority of,
    Thusly- to be put, thus:

    And for the subject of the thread:

    rubicon
    lexicon

    I'll find a way to use these somehow one day.

    And I looked at my girlfriend's kid's homework, they say there are only four types of sentence statements, declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory, where's pejorative? Does it fall under exclamatory or declarative?
     
  7. piezoe

    piezoe

    "Rubicon," simultaneously both the first and "penultimate" word in your list, is a great word in that it saves many. I expect to hear it used in coming days with respect to the Syria situation. One might also say that we inadvertently crossed the "Rubicon" when we passed the War Powers Act.
     
  8. jem

    jem

    I noticed juxtaposition made run through the news cycle a few years ago after I used it here in relation to the Obama chia pet.

    Its too bad the word bogus developed a bogus reputation.

    I would be happy to see the word gay used properly.