$20 Words

[YmaOHyd]

I assume you know your kevel from your panama cleat, sir?

This gave me significant I see you know your judo well vibes. This is democracy manifest.

 

[Ian_Snow]

Love you a word as much as Carl Hiaasen loves "lugubrious."

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Love you a word as much as Carl Hiaasen loves "lugubrious."

I sat on a scholarship review board where I was the least educated; I have a BS.
After reviewing what turned out to be the winning essay, the lawyer on the committee asked, “Does anybody know what lugubrious means?”

We had to find a dictionary to look it up.

FWIW, the other committee members, besides me and the lawyer, were an ophthalmologist and a veterinarian.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Donning Kevlar and Nomex after the last time... Sorry, sorry, sorry!

'Hypergolic' (as in A + B = ) Used by the protagonist in describing the effect on his libido of watching his wife's two best friends making out in front of him.

To anybody who loves concepts like "hypergolic", I commend Things I Won't Work With.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

To anybody who loves concepts like "hypergolic", I commend Things I Won't Work With.

Eek! I’ll add that to my list. (Which started, if it matters, when a prof started lecturing about a common rocket fuel component - red fuming nitric acid. Which, ‘cause it will eat its way through to the centre of the earth, has to be mixed with more fun stuff like hydrogen fluoride and dinitrogen-tetroxide. Having a sentimental attachment to most body parts, my interest in rocket science took a u-turn right about then.)

 

[yowser]

Mark Twain's verbiage, from Roughing It:

In Syria, once, at the head-waters of the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat while the tents were being pitched, and examined it with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as if he had an idea of getting one made like it; and then, after he was done figuring on it as an article of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article of diet. He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life. Then he smacked his lips once or twice, and reached after the other sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile of such contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the daintiest thing about an overcoat. The tails went next, along with some percussion caps and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople. And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance in that--manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was treading on dangerous ground, now. He began to come across solid wisdom in those documents that was rather weighty on his stomach; and occasionally he would take a joke that would shake him up till it loosened his teeth; it was getting to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip with good courage and hopefully, till at last he began to stumble on statements that not even a camel could swallow with impunity. He began to gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of a minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-bench, and died a death of indescribable agony. I went and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth, and found that the sensitive creature had choked to death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements of fact that I ever laid before a trusting public.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Eek! I’ll add that to my list. (Which started, if it matters, when a prof started lecturing about a common rocket fuel component - red fuming nitric acid. Which, ‘cause it will eat its way through to the centre of the earth, has to be mixed with more fun stuff like hydrogen fluoride and dinitrogen-tetroxide. Having a sentimental attachment to most body parts, my interest in rocket science took a u-turn right about then.)

That level of rocket science is something that I'm quite content to watch from a distance. And by "from a distance" I mean "on television". And by "watch on television" I mean "read about".

 

[yano2mch]

I can’t believe you of all people are asking about where valuations come from. Every restaurant I go to that serves lobster has it at market price, and I’m pretty sure they pull those numbers out of their ass…

Heh, half the price of Starbucks coffee is you being able to use fancy words. You sound more sophisticated. Instead of a coffee with sugar and cream and a bit of chocolate you say you'd want a Venti macchiato double shot (and the naming could be a lot longer, sounds like another language). Sounds fancy but hold no extra value... except the $4 they add to the price of your coffee.


It's probably more the attitude conveyed and how you present the character than the words you use. Doing a ditzy cheerleader as a professor in science could be interesting.

"So like the Hydrogen and Oxygen, yeah they like bond together.. and ummm.. the fusion gives like energy, and that energy can power a car it's water fusion, like yeah... But if you use electricity on water you can separate the bonds to get just Hydrogen and Oxygen again and that's like SOOOOO boring... Wouldn't you like to look at the water leaking from under my skirt instead?"

Course complexity could also be in just using Latin. If i handed you several Taraxacum Asteraceaes would it be romantic? Even if it's just a Dandelion?

 

[YmaOHyd]

I can’t believe you of all people are asking about where valuations come from. Every restaurant I go to that serves lobster has it at market price, and I’m pretty sure they pull those numbers out of their ass…

 

[Bodington]

My personal take on this topic: During my formative academic years my teachers were always encouraging us to increase our vocabulary. They particularly advised that if we encountered a word, we did not know the meaning we should consult the dictionary. I married a woman whose mother (i.e obviously my mother-in-law) was fond of saying to her, “Why use a twenty-five cent word when a fifty cent word would work better. Apparently, such mind set of my wife, and I rubbed off on to our children. This was brought home to us when my wife first visited our eldest daughter who was in the Navy and stationed in Jacksonville, FL. After a conversation with one of our daughter’s Navy friends, the latter opined to my wife, “We always thought Kirsten (my daughter’s name) was putting on airs by the way she was talking. But I can see she comes to this way of speaking honestly.”

 

[Voboy]

I'm actually writing a story right now where one of the characters occasionally misuses $20 words (20 shilling, in his case). It's fun, but I'm making sure I don't overdo it.