Vocabularies and Fingerprints

 

Vocabularies and Fingerprints

Each Friday I volunteer at the Barton School, at Spokane’s First Presbyterian Church. The School’s mission is to help non-English speakers improve their fluency. I’m constantly struck by the students’ courage and tenacity in trying to figure out the complexities and inconsistencies characterizing English.

Then there’s their vocabularies. I’m often surprised by the basic words (in my opinion) that they don’t know and even more surprised by some that they do. Our vocabularies are like our fingerprints: Unique. I’m convinced that none of our vocabularies perfectly overlaps with anyone else’s.

Which brings me to my list of words or phrases. When I’m reading I look up words I don’t know. Well, usually. Then I enter them in a Word document (that’s appropriate). Occasionally I update my list, as I’ve done this month, culling a few that I’ve remembered.

You see, that’s my problem. Merely looking up an unknown word usually isn’t enough to recall its meaning when I encounter it again. As I tell my students, repetition is needed for a word to become a permanent resident in one’s vocabulary.

Here are five of these entries, giving you a small sample of the English words I’ve encountered.

Ambisintrous: Clumsy with both hands. (Remember “ambidextrous”? Then there’s that delightful line, “I’d give my right hand to be ambidextrous”?)

Capgras syndrome: A mental health condition that leads you to think people have all been replaced by exact doubles.

Iatronudia: The tendency of some women to pretend to be sick so they can be seen unclothed in front of their doctors.

Retronym: A term referring to a noun and a modifier that specifies the original meaning of the noun, usually required by technological advances, to clarify meaning. Examples: rotary phone, snail mail, analog watch.

Siffleur: A professional whistler.

Maybe I’ll remember these now.

[300 words]