As a child, I kept a stack of fresh composition notebooks in the drawer of my kiddie-desk. Above them, I lined up the books I checked out from the library every week: everything from The Dork Diaries to Pride and Prejudice. Whenever I ran into an unfamiliar word while reading, I would write down the word in a composition notebook, along with its meaning and the sentence I had found it in. More often than not, I got lazy and just searched the word up in an Oxford English dictionary (or skimmed past it entirely), neglecting to write it down. The thicker the plot, the more difficult it became to tear my eyes away from it and pick up my pencil. 

Despite months-long hiatuses, my words books piled up, and soon I had “Words Books #1” through “Words Book #6” in my drawer. The words were often hastily written, sentences abbreviated, definitions abridged. When reviewing the books, I could sometimes barely read my own handwriting. I also often forgot the meanings of the words right after I wrote them down; flipping through, I would guiltily realize that I could only say for certain what about a quarter of the words I had hastily scrawled down meant. However, I continued to collect words in this way because I loved saying them out loud, reciting them and feeling them roll off of my tongue and into the air, like music, like art. I associated many words inextricably with the context in which I had found them, and I found this to be a much easier, more natural way to memorize their definitions. Surplus of supplies, token of my love, tranquil seas, gratify her curiosity. 

In fourth grade, I took the WordMasters contest for the first time, a 20-question multiple choice test composed entirely of fill-in-the-blank analogies. For each of three tests that took place in a given school year, students were given 25 vocabulary words that would appear on the test. I took the contest every year until eighth grade, and despite its limited format as an exam, WordMasters unlocked a new dimension to words for me. I spent hours reading examples of the given words being used in literature and studying their definitions and and origins. Soon, I came to imagine the words as people. Husky was confident, brooding, suave, and wore a black suit with silver cufflinks. Cryptically wore horn-rimmed glasses, red lipstick, and a beige trench coat. She sat perfectly still at a typewriter, shrouded in smoke. Subdue shuffled along, shoulders rounded forward; all I could see of their face was that it was red as a tomato as they stared at the floor, from shame or anger, I couldn’t tell. Irk, well, he looked just like my older brother (just kidding ;D). Each word evoked a feeling, a situation, a connotation. Reflex was a good friend of alertness, but propriety talked smack about swagger behind their back (in reality, though, they were just secretly jealous). Sleek was my favorite for several days; I repeated it to myself over and over again until it didn’t sound like a word anymore, all the while imagining myself running my fingers over a black cat’s polished fur. Each word I’ve just mentioned likely brings somewhat different images to someone else’s mind, just as we all have different impressions of the same person. 

Translating words for my grandpa from English to Chinese and back in my head, I realized that swapping one word out for another could drastically change the meaning of the sentence. For example, a direct translation of “不错” is “not wrong” or “not bad,” but while these phrases (particularly the former, which is more accurate) might have a disappointed-but-being-nice-about-it connotation in English, my family actually uses it as a compliment in Chinese; a better translation would be, “wow, pretty good!” With this realization, I was barely scratching the surface of the bright and colorful world of linguistics, but I still felt awed by the different meanings and feelings that words and phrases could take on in different languages. 

While reading The Great Gatsby last year, I ran into a number of words that were unfamiliar to me, and I decided to continue my habit of writing words down, which I had abandoned upon entering high school. I trusted myself to memorize the definitions, and copied down only the sentence I had found them in and the source. Sometimes, debating whether or not to write down a word, I wondered if I’d be able to use that word myself in a sentence; if the answer was no, in it went. While the collection is incomplete (more often than not, I’m too enthralled by a book to pull out my phone or laptop to record an unfamiliar word), I’m glad I came back to this hobby. The words come to life as I scroll through and read the sentences in which I first encountered them.

Below, I’ve listed six of my favorite words from that document, which is faithfully titled “Words Book #7.” I love these words, but I also think that their context does a great job of demonstrating their meaning; it infuses them with a lot of what I colloquially like to call “literary oomph,” or a strong connotation or feeling. 

AGGRANDIZE
“In these rare subtypes, the psychopath is driven less by a greed for material gain than by a desire for his own aggrandizement and the brutal punishment of inferiors” (Columbine, 294). 

ANCILLARY
After he’s arrested, everyone who’s had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein? Suddenly, no one really knew him. Suddenly, ‘Oh, well, we really weren’t friends. I knew him in an ancillary way’” (Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, Ep. 4).

EPICUREAN
“A civilization ‘is born stoic and dies epicurean,’ wrote historian Will Durant about the Babylonians” (Another Failed Presidency).

ERUDITION
“Rehnquist was a more forceful Chief Justice than Burger had been, and Scalia brought a new level of erudition and passion to the conservative bloc” (Supreme Inequality, 72).

“He is an erudite, collegial justice who usually votes with his liberal colleagues” (Justice Breyer’s Legacy-Defining Decision). 

ICONOCLAST
“The most liberal justice, Douglas was an iconoclast in law and life. He was married to his fourth wife, Cathy, a 25-year-old law student—a union that attracted attention in legal circles and beyond” (Supreme Inequality, 50).

“Their capacity for impromptu organization, for secrecy and loyalty, their iconoclastic disregard for class and established order were a revelation to all concerned, but especially themselves…” (The Feminine Mystique, 83). 

INTREPID
“In the annals of literature, no character is as renowned for his powers of ‘deduction’ as the intrepid Sherlock Holmes, but the way Holmes operates is not generally by using deductive logic at all” (Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, ?). 

“Worn in some of the most iconic scenes in film history – Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Marlene Dietrich in A Foreign Affair, Meryl Streep in Kramer vs. Kramer – the trench became synonymous with intrepid men and smart women” (Vogue encyclopaedia: The history of the trench coat). 

Note: This blog was inspired by our discussion of metaphors in class, by James Geary’s Ted Talk, “Metaphorically Speaking,” and by Cash’s and Addie’s ideas on words in As I Lay Dying.