A Vocab Lesson Courtesy of Norman Rush & Amy Goodman

Not to insult your intelligence, gentle readers, but I have recently come across several new words that I thought you would like to know about as well.

 From Mating, by Norman Rush (which, incidentally, is told by the most wonderful narrator I have ever met and which you must read if you like fiction at all), I learned the following words, which are all the more lovely because even though they are new and fancy, they are nice and short:

*  surfeit (v/n – Latin origin):  excess.  “Why not just say excess?” you may ask.  Because, first of all, surfeit is both a noun and a verb, which is fun, and because it connotes overindulge, particularly but not necessarily regarding food and drink.  So you can sit back at the end of a meal and rather than unbuckling your belt buckle and saying in a country accent, “I’m not near as hungry as I was,” you can just say “Mmmm…. surfeit.”

*  megrim (n – Middle English origin, from “migraine”): flight of fancy, caprice, depressions, moods.  Love how this little word has several different meanings.  Usually used in the plural, as in ”I have a case of the Monday megrims.”

*  cavil (n/v – French origin): a frivolous objection OR to frivolously object.  Again, a fabulous noun/verb ambidexter.  Look at all the syllables you will save the next time you find yourself needing to say “What a frivolous objection!” and can say instead simply, “What a cavil!” 

* noetic (adj – Greek origin): intellectual, mental.  This is not such a cool word in and of itself but it does have a pretty fabulous word cousin….

* noosphere (n – Greek origin):  the sphere of human thought.  Fun!  (pronounced nu-ah-sphere, not new-sphere, in case you are already planning to whip this one out in casual conversation.)

That’s it from Mr. Rush, now just one more vocab lesson, this one from Amy Goodman, host of the Democracy Now! radio show.

extraordinary rendition (n – Pentagonese origin) :  “This is White House for kidnapping,” says Amy. Use it in a sentence, you say?  OK:  “When the U.S. government arrested Canadian citizen Maher Arar at JFK Airport and sent him to Syria, where he was tortured for 10 months before being returned to Canada and declared completely innocent of any crimes, that was an example of extraordinary rendition.”