A Word a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: legos

About This Blog

I love language. I enjoy playing with words and even, yes, reading dictionaries, thesauruses and style manuals.

Last fall, when I was motivating myself to write again, I recalled some advice from a very wise English teacher who told me that one of the keys to learning new vocabulary was to make the words relevant.

I thought that would be an excellent daily writing exercise for myself, so I started a daily blog on my MySpace blog with a word of the day. After the traditional definition, synonyms and usage blurbs, I added a section called "Relevance to My life," in which I'd use the word in a description of some aspect of my life.

Occasionally I'd add "What it is NOT" entries and video clips, some of which were directly relevant, and others which resulted from my stream-of-consciousness train of thought.

I hope that you enjoy them!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Derisory

The Word of the Day for April 13 is "derisory."

derisory: (adjective) Incongruous; inviting ridicule.

Synonyms: absurd, cockeyed, idiotic, laughable, ludicrous, nonsensical, preposterous, ridiculous

Usage: The shareholders dismissed the lowball offer as derisory.

Relevance to my life: The girls first viewed my changes to their favorite recipe (boxed Mac and Cheese) as derisory, but I won them over with the homemade baked mac and cheese in the end. Lucy gave me an enthusiastic two thumbs up and said, "Gee Mommy, this is the best 'smack and cheese' ever!" Damn straight, kid.

The Battle of Wits
The Sicilian certainly thought The Dread Pirate Roberts's challenge to a battle of wits to be derisory. "Inconceivable!" Too bad for him.