Blogging, Humor, iPhone Notes, Life, Nonsense, Writing

Words I Had to Look Up

Kari

In my post, 53 Things I’ve Learned in 53 Years, I mentioned that there are some words that I don’t know how to spell or what they mean. It would have embarrassed me to admit this ten years ago, but now I have no concern about discussing it with all of you. Maybe some of you are in the same boat?

Life is too short to act smarter than I truly am.

I might sew that on a pillow. Long-time blog readers will remember me saying that. I can’t link to when I used to say that because delete, delete, delete…

I’m thinking about making this a series because the more I read, the more words I come across that I don’t know what they mean. I told Mike the other day that I’ve read more books in three years than I have in my entire life, and I’m not exaggerating.

Learning new things is fun at any age.

Photo by Jimmy Chan on Pexels.com

Words I had to look up the meaning of

Arbitrary

“The boundary between space and the earth is purely arbitrary. And I’ll probably always be interested in this planet- it’s my favorite.” -Carl Sagan

Platitude

I knew what it was, but I didn’t know what it was called.

Here are some examples:

“Everything happens for a reason”

“Times heals all wounds”

Definition and Examples of Platitudes in English

What are the most annoying platitudes?

Ambiguous

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.” –Gilda Radner

Paradox

“The paradox of trauma is that is has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.” – Peter Levine

Nihilism

“The point is there aint no point.” – Cormac McCarthy

Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance Examples: 5 Ways It Pops Up In Everyday Life

Tour de force

Trope

Top 12 Overused Story Tropes in Modern Literature

Omnipresent

Astute

“The word “love” is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we would use it as a verb.” – Bell Hooks

Aggrandize

Egregious

Ennui

Verbose (IE- my blog)

Photo by Huu1ef3nh u0110u1ea1t on Pexels.com

Dogmatic

Prescient

Dubious

“The romantic contrast between modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to exinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of life.” – Yuval Noah Harari

Words I have trouble spelling

(I knew what these words meant)

Criticism

Existential

Innocuous

Conscious

Convenient

Embarrass

Length

Discipline

Perseverance

What words do you struggle with?

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59 thoughts on “Words I Had to Look Up”

  1. I love words. A fun post. I’ve always been a good speller but as I get older, less so. Sometimes I’ll spell a word correctly, and it just looks funny. I laughed when I saw the word discipline on your list. In fifth grade I lost the spelling bee on that word!!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I love new words and I like to play with them especially if you can apply the meaning to a new situation. I have never been a good speller, I struggle with editing, and I just have to be okay with that. Great post, I’ve feeling much less alone! Hugs, C

    Liked by 1 person

  4. I love learning a new word. Being an avid reader all my life I knew all those on your list and had to chuckle about spelling. My husband never looks anything up he just asks me.
    I can barely add two plus two…. but I used to win spelling bees.
    😉

    Liked by 1 person

  5. We make fun of autocorrect in texting and even spell check, but I must admit to being grateful for them. I’ve prided myself on my spelling, but there are some words that just have historically given me problems. Silly ones too. They’re not overly long. I just need to check them every time. You’re not the only one!!!!

    Liked by 1 person

  6. The spelling of bureaucracy. So many vowels in the wrong place. Harass (why only one r?), rhythm, conscious, and broccoli (way to make me feel dumb every time I make a grocery list, WORD) are other words I have trouble spelling.

    I don’t understand when to use effect v. affect at all. I’ve read the explanation in probably five grammar guides and now I just don’t use the words at all. I’ll rewrite entire paragraphs to avoid their use.

    I also type “the” as “teh” most of the time and have to fix it.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. OMG, bureaucracy. That is a doozy.

      I also dislike how my iPhone will not correct simple words but will immediately understand difficult ones. That was inspired by your teh the.

      Like

  7. I just learned the word Trope a few days ago – and here you have it on your list! That makes me feel so happy! Another word I just learned is Esoteric. I enjoy learning new words – but spelling is getting more difficult these days, especially when I hand-write a note without auto-correct!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We’re learning about tropes in the same week! Michelle, I feel so much more connected to you!

      I had to look up esoteric because I’d heard of it but never looked into it. I now know what it means!

      When it comes to spelling, technology isn’t helping any of us. 🤣

      Like

  8. I ALWAYS have to pause and think when spelling Wednesday (it’s a whole story!) or vacuum. (Two c’s/two u’s which one?!!! So grateful for autocorrect on that one!)

    This post kind of makes me think if Reader’s Digest word power quizzes!! I loved those as a kid!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I always say WedNESday. Also, you’re not alone with vacuum. There’s more of us who think there should be another c in there. Maybe we should stop vacuuming altogether in protest!

      What are these?? I’ve never heard of them! Tell me more…

      Like

      1. Bahahah! I am not the kind of person who gives up vacuuming even if can’t spell it. (It’s one of my favorite chores – especially using the wand to do corners, along walls, and the sliding door tracks.)

        When I was a kid my grandma got me a subscription to readers digest and they had “test your word power” quizzes each month. It was basically a multiple choice quiz on word definitions. I absolutely loved it. I still get teased by family about my “reader’s digest words” any time I use a more uncommon word.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. I struggle with a lot of words while spelling as my spelling has never been that great (a trait I sadly seemed to have passed onto my kids!)… Thank goodness for spell check!

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Kari, as much as I enjoy writing, I have MAJOR trouble spelling. Always have. Particularly new words that I want to use, but not sure how to spell them. For the past year and a half, I’ve been using GRAMMARLY to check (and double check my spelling) and grammar. It’s a great online tool.

    The words I tend to misspell the most are words that have two of the same letter (like, embarrass), and not knowing if it’s two r’s or two s’s.

    Love that quote from Gilda Radner. GOD, how I miss that woman! I watched the documentary on her life years ago, and cried my eyes out.

    Have a fabulous week, my friend! X

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Grammarly is fantastic. Thank God for editing tools; otherwise, I’d be in big trouble. 🤣

      I have her documentary on my list to watch. She was a treasure. So was her husband.

      Thank you, friend! You do the same. 😘❤️

      Like

  12. I love words and have always been a good speller, but sometimes I still have to look words up to make sure I’m spelling them correctly. I’m worse with definitions though…I frequently look up words when reading to see what they mean. And now you’ve given me more words to look up, out of curiosity!

    I cringed when I came across the word platitude because that’s one word I know and I absolutely *hate* platitudes! Brian calls them “cold comfort”.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Ha. I learned the meaning of Ennui from Edward Gorey’s book The Gashley Crumb Tinies E is for Edward who died of Ennui. 😅

    Liked by 1 person

  14. I’m always looking up words because the way we use them varies greatly from what they actually mean. But I also sort of love words…

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  15. Never be embarrassed by learning; that is one of the biggest lesson we should all learn.

    Whenever I come across a word that I’m not quite sure about, I grab my phone and look it up immediately. Because sometimes, not always, you just can’t decipher the meaning from the context being used.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I forgot to mention – Merriam-Webster is my “go to” if I’m unsure how to pronounce a word; the online version will actually play a small recording of how it is pronounced. I love that feature.

      Liked by 1 person

  16. Some of my favorite words on your list of words! I feel like I used to be a better speller, but maybe I just thought I was a better speller. I frequently check the meaning of words I use; I’m usually using them correctly, but every once in a while I realize that a word doesn’t mean what I thought it did. Sometimes, checking the meaning of a word sends me down a path that takes me to a better place (in my thinking) than I would otherwise have been.

    Also, thanks for linking to the post on deleting. That one slipped by me somehow. (I think I was deep in trip prep.) I’m so glad I got to see it. I’ve had similar feelings. I haven’t felt like I have the time to go back and delete, but I’ve sure thought about it! Like you, the focus of my blog has changed since I began it. Many of the early posts feel irrelevant. Many of them bore me. (Yeah, verbose.) My feelings are (like yours, I think) ambivalent. (See what I did there? :-) )

    Liked by 1 person

  17. I was the nerdy kid who won spelling bees and reading contests because I read so many books. I still love to read and I think I have a decent vocabulary. Taking French for 7 years helps with all the Latin-based words.

    The dumb thing is, I sometimes struggle spelling simple words, like niece (why do I always think it’s neice?) and axle (fortunately don’t need that word too often).

    My biggest issue in the whole language arena is that I read so much, I only know the words by sight, not by how they are pronounced. Meaning, it’s not like I can throw any ‘vocabulary words’ into conversation because I’d end up sounding stupid! LOL! I think I was in college when I learned that ‘chaos’ was pronounced K-OS. For years, I thought the pronounced word was a different word than what in my head was ‘CHAY-O-S’ if that makes any sense?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I love that you won the spelling bees! For two years in high school, I studied French. The first year was a lot of fun; the second year was about verb schemas, which I didn’t enjoy as much.

      As you can see, I also struggle with simple words. 🤣

      It makes complete sense!

      Like

  18. I love a good list of words! Our lexicon is so enormous, there is no way we can know ALL the words, right? Having a child who constantly asks “what does X mean?” has shown me that there are MANY words I understand from context, or understand how to use correctly, that I nevertheless cannot define!

    I exchange New To Me words with two people: my father and a writing friend. One of the most enjoyable parts of this word exchange (besides discovering new words!) is the discovery that we all know different words! A word could be completely new to me and yet my father already knows it. Or my friend sends me a word that I use frequently that he has never encountered before.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Suzanne, I had to look up lexicon just so you know who you’re dealing with. However, I agree!
      I feel like such a big girl now that I know ALL THE WORDS!

      I really like how you practice new words with your dad and your friend. That sounds like something my dad and I would do. ❤️

      Liked by 1 person

  20. I struggle to spell the exact words as you! Also, for some reason restaurant…I always EF up restaurant!

    I often look up works to make sure I’m using them in the correct way as I too, don’t know everything. Not even most things. I love learning new words, but often forget them a minute later. I believe I’m at my maximum word remembering stage of life.

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  21. I sometimes hear a word or I read a word and I think I’ll look it up later, but then I forget what it is – so while I’d like to get smarter, I’m not sure that I am getting there.

    The word I will never be able to spell is exersize. See? exercize. Nope. It’s still underlined in red because I CANNOT SPELL THAT WORD. Exercise. There, I did it – but I needed the previous examples to figure it out. Lawdy.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. I have a pretty large vocabulary and know what many varied weird words mean, but when it comes to spelling them… I am forever fussing around trying to get the letters in the right order.

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