How to offend others with your advanced vocabularies

I thought I’d come up with a common set of words that, in a certain social contexts, can get one labeled a Bolshevik agitiator and locked up in prison.

That’s an exaggeration, of course, but here is a list of often innocuous, yet frequently misunderstood, words.

1. Disingenuous: really means a calculating appearance of candor, often used to mislead others or further one’s agenda. For example: “to be frank here, well, our party platform really is all about oil, but that’s a good thing and here’s why. . .”. This word is often misinterpreted to mean: obtuse or dull (not a genius). Certainly not a compliment, but not as severe of an insult as calling one stupid.

2. Exacerbate: it means to make things worse, but people giggle like teenagers over its use and it makes some uncomfortable in general. I think that someone who really messes things up a lot can be called a chronic exacerbator.

3. Ecuminical: means having a universal appication or influence, often misconstrued to mean totalitarian or religious. For example: We must find an ecuminical solution to our current overpopulation dilemma. And that, sadly, is how wars get started.

4. Pulchritude: means beauty, but it’s such an ugly sounding word that it’s often taken for an insult. For example: Madam, your pulchritude makes this evening impossible to continue without my first having another drink.

5. Steatopygic: it means having a big butt. Yeah, it’s probably an insult in most circles, but it’s a fun word, so it gets included.

6. Pedantic: it means narrowly, yet ostentatiously educated (for example, someone who specializes only in the alapastra phylum of vegetables — okay, so I made that up); however, describing someone as such makes it sound like they had sign into a registry when they moved into your neighborhood.

7. Gregarious: means sociable, but is often misused to mean obnoxious.

8. Aphorism: a concise statement principle. This word is often used colloquially to mean a cliche.

9. Pithy: means having substance and point, tersely cogent, in other words. Often confused with words like trite, silly, balderdash, and general tomfoolery (ballyhoo, as it were).

10. Terse: means smoothely elegant in execution and, sometimes, sparing of words. You see it in some circles (and often by thesaurus-laden authors) interpreted simply as meaning rude.

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2 Responses to How to offend others with your advanced vocabularies

  1. adrienne says:

    You must rock the NY Times Crossword Puzzle.

  2. Evil_bastard says:

    I’m actually opprobrious at crossword puzzles.

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