Monday, March 3, 2008

How smart are you? (Me..not so very.)

I have been reading a book by Michael Perry titled "Population: 485" I have enjoyed it very much except I feel so illiterate when I read his work. He uses a lot of big words and so far all the ones I took the time to look up have been legitimate. Smile. They really were in the dictionary!So here is your test....how many definitions do you know without going to the dictionary?
1. Vertiginous
2. Egregious
3. Acculturation
4. Otiose
5. Denoument
6. Aggrandizement
7. Autodidacts


That is just a taste. I felt like egregious seemed sort of familiar but I really couldn't put an exact definition to it. The rest I can say I have never seen. I did feel happy to be comfortable with a few other "big" words in the book like...
1. Cumulonimbus: If you don't think you know this one just look outside at the sky here in the northwest pretty much any winter day and there it is!
2. Gallumphing
3. Stubbornness
4. Refrigerator
5. Conglomeration


I am pretty sure you can find #5 in #4 above.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

well i knew a couple of these...but definitely hadn't heard of most of them...must have been a stimulating read!

Dad Burgess

Anonymous said...

What? You've not heard these words before? Joint the club. Must have been an interesing read.

Dad Rurgess

Brent and Dayla said...

Are you kidding me? Brent's my walking dictionary. Hopefully Marissa also gets that trait from him. I liked science & math in school, & our school was lacking in the English & Arts Department way back when. Kuddos to you for exponding your vocabulary! Dayla

ALB said...

My husband must be the thinker in the family...he said none of these show up in reading Dilbert!