Buy these words - or else
As tied in to the high school industry as it is, American Heritage Dictionary Publisher Houghton Mifflin still manages to astonish with its blatant product placement in this month's publication of "100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know".The list also targets parents, hinting that they, too, should run to a bookstore and buy a dictionary - say, an American Heritage Dictionary - and look up words like "quotidian", which is a person from Glendale who won't shut up about William Saroyan.
Gee, maybe every member of the family should have a dictionary. That's about as bad as the U.S. Government stamping its logo all over my cheese.
After some thought, I put together a sentence with all 100 words, defining each in context so you wouldn't have to further enslave yourself to the Linguo-Educational complex.
I like to abjure abrogate abstemious acumen antebellum auspicious belie bellicose bowdlerize chicanery chromosome churlish circumlocution circumnavigate deciduous deleterious diffident enervate enfranchise epiphany equinox euro evanescent expurgate facetious fatuous feckless fiduciary filibuster gamete gauche gerrymander hegemony hemoglobin homogeneous hubris hypotenuse impeach incognito incontrovertible inculcate infrastructure interpolate irony jejune kinetic kowtow laissez faire lexicon loquacious lugubrious metamorphosis mitosis moiety nanotechnology nihilism nomenclature nonsectarian notarize obsequious oligarchy omnipotent orthography oxidize parabola paradigm parameter pecuniary photosynthesis plagiarize plasma polymer precipitous quasar quotidian recapitulate reciprocal reparation respiration sanguine soliloquy subjugate suffragist supercilious tautology taxonomy tectonic tempestuous thermodynamics totalitarian unctuous usurp vacuous vehement vortex winnow wrought xenophobe yeoman ziggurat three or four times daily if I can get away with it.
Notice there's no "eleemosynary" on the list. I guess they'll toss that one out in the deluxe package after you've already bought this one. Lucasfilm should start printing dictionaries.
See also: 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know
Labels: books
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by Marty Barrett at Wednesday, June 13, 2007
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