Thursday, February 7, 2008

Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words


I've been really excited about learning new words lately. The first would be this past Saturday I learned that those little things that they put honey mustard in at restaurants are called ramekins. I really like that word, just the way that it comes out of my mouth. Ramekin. I've recently come to realize though that apparently most people already knew about the ramekins, I'm trying to figure out why it took 25 years for someone to tell me. If so many people knew that they were called ramekins why did they let me go around for so long calling them the little things that they put honey mustard in at restaurants? In the meantime I thought a ramekin was a cross between a ram and a munchkin (featured here). Fierce little creatures that wear bow ties and attack kangaroos on sight. Silly me, it's just a small piece of pottery that I have always found fascinating.

It's kind of like last year when I learned that those things at the library that create their queue lines are called stanchions. I was really excited when I was able to ask my mom if she knew that they were called stanchions, and the only thing I got was the fact that she already knew what they were called, and then of course that I was saying it wrong. I can't help it that I only heard the word twice in my lifetime when I should have been hearing the word all along. Don't even get me started on queue, why did I learn that word while playing Rollercoaster Tycoon and upped the usage of it only after joining Netflix? Why didn't people call lines queues all along. I've been deprived; ramekin, queue, and stanchion are words that I should have known before I went to college! Maybe if these three words were more widely used I would have done better on the SATs.Another word that I learned this week would be epistaxis. Thanks to my friend Mary repeating it and forcing me to use it in sentences (i.e. working on a beautiful day like today is like suffering from a spontaneous epistaxis while blowing out the candles on your birthday cake.) I have finally got it down. Epistaxis is a fancy word for a nose bleed by the way. That would have come in handy during the CSI Chili Cook-off when someone apparently had an epistaxis in the men's bathroom.
Would anyone like to add to my vocabulary? Anyone learn any new words this week?

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