improve my vocabulary

bonhomie: pleasant and easy manner.

fustian: pompous or pretentious language.

hobbledehoy: an awkward, gawky young fellow.

That hobbledehoy has a real bonhomie about him. :)

brummagem \BRUHM-uh-juhm\, adjective:
Cheap and showy, tawdry; also, spurious, counterfeit.

But demanding that publishers replace their brummagem wares with books which embody Kunin’s “high standards of excellence” would be a promising - and cost-free - way to begin.
—Betty McCollister, “A Conspiracy of Good Intentions: America’s Textbook Fiasco”, Humanist, November-December, 1993

Best. word. ever.

milieu \meel-YUH; meel-YOO\, noun;
plural milieus or milieux:
Environment; setting.

These were agricultural areas, populated with prosperous farming families and rural artisans—a completely different milieu from the Monferrands’, which was more closed, more cultured, but less affluent.
—Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana

I cheated and used the google word of the day… but this is one that I think would make me seem smart if I could use it right, and under the right circumstances… you know, cause it’s one of those words that people probably use wrong. Not that I care what people think.

Adjective
1. Lower in position or rank; secondary. 2. Chiefly British Holding a military rank just below that of captain. 3. Logic In the relation of a particular proposition to a universal with the same subject, predicate, and quality.
Noun
1. A subordinate. 2. Chiefly British A subaltern officer. 3. Logic A subaltern proposition.

Etymology
French subalterne, from Old French, from Late Latin subalternus

google sentence: “However, subaltern history has not always had an easy relationship with feminism.”

I like to look up words it seems like everyone else probably already knows. I feel like I’m filling in gaps here and there.

I’ve heard this before somewhere…

simulacrum \sim-yuh-LAY-krum; -LAK-rum\, noun;
plural simulacra \sim-yuh-LAY-kruh; -LAK-ruh\:
1. An image; a representation.
2. An insubstantial, superficial, or vague likeness or semblance.

simulacrum – A representation, or an unreal or vague likeness. The plural is simulacra. Also see analogy, appropriation, copy, counterfeit, ersatz, facsimile, fake, forgery, metaphor, mirror, paint-by-number, and replica, reproduction, simile, simulacrum, and simulation.

NOUN: Something closely resembling another: carbon copy, copy, duplicate, facsimile, image, likeness, reduplication, replica, replication, reproduction. Archaic : simulacre. Law : counterpart. See SAME.

sim·u·la·crum (smy-lkrm, -lkrm)
n. pl. sim·u·la·cra (-lkr, -lkr)
1. An image or representation.
2. An unreal or vague semblance.

This word, I find fascinating. So many people and things have been accused of being this. So many times one has wondered, was it this, or was it real? A couple of things have been named this. I like simulicrum

That’s Google’s word of the day…

A pugilist is a boxer… but if he’s a second rate boxer, and we want to insult him, we call him a palooka. If e’s really stupid, and not even good enough to be a palooka, we call him a stumblebum.

pugilist \PYOO-juh-list\, noun:
One who fights with the fists; especially, a professional prize fighter; a boxer.

pa·loo·ka noun
Sports. An incompetent or easily defeated athlete, especially a prizefighter.
Slang. A stupid or clumsy person.

stum·ble·bum noun (Slang)
A person regarded as blundering or inept.
A punch-drunk or second-rate prizefighter.

lu.nu.la also lunule n. [F., fr. L. lunula, dim. of luna moon.]

1: The crescent-shaped area at the base of the human fingernail 2: Anything crescent-shaped; a crescent-shaped part or mark.

SerVaas, Cory, Ask Doctor Cory., Vol. 76, Child Life, 03-01-1997, pp 32(1).

“All healthy fingernails have white moons or half-moons, called lunulas, at the base.”

Wow… there is a word for everything…

That’s a pretty word… I want to name my Daughter Lunula. How many people would actually know what it meant anyway? Hehe.

lambaste \lam-BAYST\, transitive verb:
1. To give a thrashing to; to beat severely.
2. To scold sharply; to attack verbally; to berate.

Eventually, at a 1965 conference of African and Asian revolutionaries in Algiers, he exploded, publicly lambasting the Russian leaders as “accomplices to imperialist exploitation.”
—Peter Canby, “Poster Boy for the Revolution”

Dude, “lambaste” totally rocks. I’m going to accuse someone of lambasting me.

Adjective
1. Sinful; guilty. 2. Violating a rule or an accepted practice; erring.

This is not anyone’s word of the day, anywhere, but i am glad to have a better understanding of it… not to be confused with peccary, which is an animal with cloven hooves… Oh, the devil, with all his peccancies, they say he is a peccary.

Because I use “great,” “cool,” and “awesome” too much…

amazing, astonishing, astounding, fabulous, fantastic, fantastical, incredible, marvelous, miraculous, phenomenal, prodigious, stupendous, unbelievable, wondrous

If yo uwant to be informal… dandy, dreamy, great, ripping, super, swell, tremendous.

If you feel the need to use slang… cool, groovy, hot, keen, neat, nifty.

I’d like to start describing things as ripping. I think that would be stellar.

AND, today I read about taxonomy. That is the science of catogorizing things, which I think is just fabulous (another word I overuse) I looked up the word synonym, and found that, in taxonomy, it is used to mean two parts that are alike… that’s not just in words, but in biology too… I’m not exactly sure how that works, because I thought that all the parts were different, but hey… oh well.

Taxonomy is my word of the day! And now I must go and read about plants! That is all.