Vocab lessons

When I started TAing I decided I needed to commit to learning new words, including but not limited to the jargon of my discipline and academia more generally. My standard for "knowing" a word is being able to define it to an undergrad. I even went so far as to print out the words and there definitions in large font and put them up on the wall of my office. I got some good ones out of that practice, like "caveat" and "lacuna," but there was also a particularly embarrassing incident during office hours involving "onanism" being right at eye-level (I was taking a class on Foucault at the time).

Apparently I need to start up my vocab lessons again, because in the past week I seem to have come across an awful lot of words I've had to look up. For example:

• verisimilitude = likelihood; probability
• miasma = a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere
• polity = a particular form or system of government (yeah, I had a general idea on this one but I couldn't have defined it to someone else so I didn't really know it)

I like words, and it drives me nuts when people use them incorrectly. I may have mentioned before that an ex used to always confuse "constitute" with "condone" and it made me seethe with rage. It's only fair that I hold myself to the same standards. I know no one is going to quiz me on them, but still feel like I should make flashcards or something. In my geek utopia maybe I'd have a vocab board on the wall that worked like the Wheel-of-Fortune set (minus Vanna), so when I touched the block a word was on the definition would appear.