Vocabulary

Not long ago, my two daughters, Mary Jo and Gracie, and I discovered a couple new words. The first was neoologist (not sure if it's hyphanated or not - would be easier to read if it were). A Neoologist is a person who creates new words or phrases. Shakespeare was a neoologist creating something like 1800 words in the English language. My husband is a neoologist creating the word splunkular for a poem that he was writing (which, by the way, will be published in his new book which is coming out before the end of the year).

We also came upon the word - Lethologica. The meaning? A time when you can't remember a word or phrase that is needed at a particular time. I always thought that was just an age thing - apparently not. It's a malady suffered by many no matter their age.

We jokingly came up with the sentence - I am a neoologist who suffers from lethologica. I know. It doesn't take much to entertaing us.

Now you ask - why am I writing about this? Especially when I just posted a blog yesterday. Here's why. After posting yesterday, my daughter, Bethany, mentioned on facebook that I knew a lot of big words. That in the course of reading my blog she had to consult her dictionary. I went over the post and couldn't figure out what she was talking about - 0bviously because I knew all the words. It happened to be the word vacilate. Which by definition means to keep changing ones mind. It amused me to think that Bethany didn't know the definition of vacilate, since a few years ago changing her mind was her major occupation. She would call me at least twice a week with a new plan. "Okay," she would say, "I figured out a new plan. Instead of doing XYZ, I am now going to do ZYX." I would smile and know that in a day or two she would call and tell me she had changed her mind and now the plan was YZX. Since then she has noticably stabilized. That might be due to her admittance into the acting program at BYU and getting married. I'm not sure which had the greater effect.

Last night I became a neoologist. Because of the facebook exchange I had a dream where I made up a word. Are you ready for this? The word is 'cartecardiopendulum.'
What is a cartecardiopendulum, you ask? It is a devise to cut sheet metal. That's right. In my dream I needed to cut some small pieces of sheet metal for the young women at girls camp to use for shooting practice.(Cuz don't the girls usually practice shooting guns at girl's camp?) I went to the hardware store to get the tool and it was called a cartecardiopendulum. So now when you need a tool to cut sheet metal you know what to ask for.

And the very best thing about the word cartecardiopendulum? It's worth about a zillion points in Scrabble!