Seven Weird Words You Can Use to Impress Your Friends (or not)
And that’s no taradiddle--short and sweet
Here’s yet another installment of my homemade, hand-cobbled vocabulary builder. You might even already know a couple of these. I threw apricate into a conversation yesterday and got rolled eyes from my grandkids. Spell check said I really meant appreciate.
So without any further delay, I give you today’s edification.
Taradiddle — (tara diddle) n. a petty lie or pretentious nonsense. Syn. Baloney, bilgewater. See also Donald Trump (sorry, couldn’t help it). Example: Much of the writing generated by artificial intelligence could be pure taradiddle.
Dongle — (dong gul) n. a piece of hardware that connects a computer to another device. Example: My husband asked me to get him a new dongle, and I couldn’t figure out where to shop for it. Okay, not a good example. How about: A USB thumb drive is a good example of a dongle.
Pareidolia — (par-i-DOH-lee-a) n. A trick of perception by which one perceives a specific image or pattern that does not exist — like the man in the moon image. Example: If you see Jesus’s face in your buttered toast, you’re seeing a pareidolia.
Salmagundi (sal mah goon dee) n. a salad-type dish of chopped meats, anchovies, eggs, and vegetables arranged in rows for contrast — kind of like a Cobb salad, but different. I’d say it might be used to describe word salad — you know, those sentences that are a hodgepodge going nowhere. Example —Martha ate her salamagundi with her eyes before she tasted it. Or: He tried to explain aerodynamics, but it was all salamagundi to her.
Apricate (ap pruh kate) v. from a Latin term, to bask or loll in sunshine. Example: I lay almost comatose, apricating on the white sand beach. It’s also a great word to apply to cats on the backs of couches.
Behoove (bee hooov) v. To be necessary or beneficial. To be in one’s best interest. Example: It would behoove Americans to vote carefully in the coming election.
Aside: My dad often told us things would behoove us — it clearly meant do it or else. It should be noted that my dad also used the word bourgeois a lot. He had his own definition and pronunciation. Actual pronunciation is bour shwa, but Dad said booze shwa, and it meant bullshit in his world. Example, if I were to say I got home before 11 last night, he would blast out, “booze shwa!”
Fractious (frak shush) adj. Impossible to deal with or generally ornery — helpful to describe crabby kids or bad-tempered animals. Example: After sitting in their Sunday best in church for two hours, children will become fractious.
Widdershins - Moving in a leftward, counterclockwise, or contrary direction. Rooted in Middle High German, it was common in the 1500s for going in the wrong or opposite direction in the 1500s. Witches then and now use it to cast binding and banishing spells, curses, and magic circles. Make a note of that!
That’s it, then. A crop of unusual words you can scatter around in your writings or conversations. Don’t blame me if people say you’re pretentious.
Got any cool words you’d care to share? Jot them in the comments!
I hear you! From time to time, I will drop an obscure word into a piece where the tone of the piece makes it feel natural. I would never pepper weird words into a serious piece or sprinkle them generously in any one story--but as one subscriber pointed out, it can be fun to find a word here or there you need to look up. A while back, you called me out on my use of "squicky" (a favorite of mine) because it caught your interest and attention. I met my goal! [ASIDE: BTW, subscribers, if anyone loves good writing, look up James Bellerjeau on Substack or Medium].
I'm thinking not many people over, say, 50 (?) have "behoove" in their vocabulary--but I've been wrong before. I expect to see your new favorite word in your writings moving forward.