I amuse myself sometimes.

[azurelunatic]

My vocabulary pops out of hiding at unexpected times and ambushes me. I was never inured to casual violence with cop shows and cartoons. Today was the first day I looked that up in the dictionary. It's not a word I see every day, so it surprised me when my eye caught it sitting up top of the page I'd just commented on.

I used it correctly. Of course I used it correctly. I'm just not used to hearing or reading those words anymore, so they don't come flying out my fingers half as often.

I spend these days fighting rear-guard action with the language, policing unusual words to make sure they don't stray from their accustomed meaning. I recall one amusing morning in high school, with "enthralled" as one of the vocabulary words. One of the jocks used it: "I got really drunk and enthralled all over the place."

I really need to join the PTA.

Comments

[adjectivegail]

"I got really drunk and enthralled all over the place."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!

[azurelunatic]

Yes.

I went to school with these people.

[ornjkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope he had been drinking out of the hip flask in his letter jacket at the time, to make a comment like that.
[I mean, my ex-husband coined the phrase 'kitty-isms' to refer to my "unique" grasp of the English language, but even I have never messed up that badly that the original word I should have said has taken a long hike down the highway from where I'm at.]

[azurelunatic]

He hadn't known the word; it was a new vocabulary word in English class.