So right now I'm reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. It's an interesting story but it makes me feel like I have a really pathetic vocabulary. Rushdie casually uses all the words I saw once on the SAT, guessed at using latin roots and never encountered again. Here are three that had me reaching for the dictionary. There were a lot more, I just happen to remember these most recent ones. Is it just me? Can anyone else use any of these words in a sentence? I'd love to see some examples :)
Sycophant - A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people
Matriculate - To be registered or admitted into a group
Recusant - dissenter; a nonconformist
4 comments:
Here's a sentence for you. My good friend John Moore's username on the internet is The Sycophant. And it fits him to a T.
Dave. Dave needs to comment here... but he reads everything in Google reader, which means he's less likely to actually do so.
I only recognized sycophant from Batman Begins and the "all you sycophantic suck-ups" line, and it put it in context enough to get a pretty good idea of it. Never knew superhero movies could be so educational, did you? And those other two words I wouldn't know either. Books like that are more work than relaxing, so I have to be in the right mood for them. Have fun with it!
I think I heard someone use the word sycophant on Friends once. In The Cutting Edge the main guy asks the main girl "So where did you matriculate from?" Seems like I can just watch TV and learn all the words I need to know, but none of the grammar. Enjoy the book.
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