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    Favorite most unused words

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    • Posts: 1,271 Member
      edited March 2015
      Malfeasant: wrongdoing, especially by a public official.

      When my dog is acting suspect I'll ask her if she's been engaging in malfeasance. I love it because it sounds so absurd. She's gonna be the only dog to pass the SAT someday.

    • Posts: 4,173 Member
      criminy - A minced oath that expresses surprise.
    • Posts: 1,899 Member
      Facetious
    • Posts: 1,404 Member
      Nonsense: when a scientist tries to tell you what happened billions of years ago when they can't say for certain what currently exists.

      Example:
      "Scientists describe Ceres as an "embryonic planet." Gravitational perturbations from Jupiter billions of years ago prevented it from becoming a full-fledged planet."

      They are going to orbit this thing in a few days and might figure out what some lights shining from it's surface is. They don't know what the lights ARE, but they have the hubris to tell us how the entire thing came into being.

      ...and some will lambast me for being a rube "because science."

      http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Dwa_Ceres
    • Posts: 4
      Defenestrate - v. to throw someone out of a window
      ineptitude
      frivolity
      shanty
      scantily clad (2 words but still, both awesome words)
    • Posts: 1,275 Member
      politicizing.
      Despite grand and noble efforts to the contrary, we still could not avoid politicizing this previously academic conversation thread. :/
    • Posts: 733 Member
      i missed my deadline by a baw hair... ( ball hair)
    • Posts: 1,404 Member
      4leighbee wrote: »
      politicizing.
      Despite grand and noble efforts to the contrary, we still could not avoid politicizing this previously academic conversation thread. :/

      Academia: an institution where large and copious amount of words are used to confuse those outside their field of study into believing they actually know what they say they know.

      Which is precisely the subject of this thread.

    • Posts: 1,404 Member
      Sokal Affair: an experiment played by a physicist to prove that incoherant gibberish completely void of logic would be generally accepted by academia if it contained enough impressive jargon and quotes leaning toward leftist ideology.

    • Posts: 1,275 Member
      CJisinShape wrote: »
      Sokal Affair: an experiment played by a physicist to prove that incoherant gibberish completely void of logic would be generally accepted by academia if it contained enough impressive jargon and quotes leaning toward leftist ideology.

      lol!
    • Posts: 875 Member
      Bitchin
    • Posts: 1,342 Member
      Perendinate : To put something off until the day after tomorrow; to remain at college for unusually long time.
    • Posts: 3,069 Member
      Slobberknocker

      Being a HUGE football fan I love to see a slobberknocker of a hit! Especially when it's on anyone who plays for Michigan, the eagles, or Pissburgh.
    • Posts: 15
      Flabbergasted: surprise (someone) greatly; astonish
    • Posts: 75 Member
      Fanatic. One who obsessively follows a person or premise, regardless of any actual merit and to the exclusion of logic. See: Religious Zealot
    • Posts: 220 Member
      Lollygag....sounds dirty...lol.
    • Posts: 1,344 Member
      WAY too many starting with tatterdemalion, plethora, vicissitude, and veracity
    • Posts: 5,169 Member
      CyberTone wrote: »
      Onomatopoeia - The formation or use of words, such as buzz or cuckoo, that imitate what they denote.

      This has been a favorite of mine since high school :)

    • Posts: 5,169 Member
      charlesbuckler wrote: »
      funkybuttlovin

      Use it often!

    • Posts: 246 Member
      exacerbate. Sounds dirty but isn't ;)
    • Posts: 1,916 Member
      Debauchery
    • Posts: 373 Member
      Unrequited- to feel love not returned
    • Posts: 373 Member
      CyberTone wrote: »
      show previous quotes
      Curmudgeon - Could you use that in a sentence please?
      - MFP should implement a curmudgeon flag.

      No one wants to argue with a curmudgeon
    • Posts: 37,259 Member
      supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Llama, it's just fun to say. Go ahead and say it, “llama” See! Wasn’t that fun? Now you don’t want to stop do ya, I know I don’t!
      Llama, llama, llama!
    • Posts: 1,275 Member
      There is a fascinating (depending on your level of English language geekdome) discussion of the proper usage of the word "myriad" here ... http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/20133/what-is-the-correct-usage-of-myriad.

      I learned something. (And now, after reading through some of that, I will be even more tentative when using it.)
    • Posts: 189 Member
      Sycophant, mellifluous, sesquipedalian.
    • Posts: 1,992 Member
      Regardless - good word which seems to have been replaced. I just miss it.
    • Posts: 42 Member
      I love (and use) the word persnickety! Another that comes to mind is picayune! = 1. Of little value or importance; paltry. See Synonyms at trivial.
      2. Petty; small-minded: "It had seemed picayune to get all bent out of shape organizing the household chores" It was also an old Spanish coin, worth very little.
    • Posts: 233 Member
      discombobulate - upset or confuse
    • Posts: 7,512 Member
      Not necessarily underused, but I really wish we could use gay interchangeably with joyful.
    This discussion has been closed.

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