Vocabulary Building Words: New Edition of “Words of the Month”

The latest edition of “Words of the Month,” my free vocabulary enrichment feature, has been online since the middle of this month. The six featured words, all of which lie within the conversational vocabulary of America’s most articulate (as is the case with all of the words featured in my book, “The Articulate Professional-3rd Edition”):

1. perorate
2. servile
3. solicitude
4. amalgamate
5. hyperventilate
6. neophyte

Here are extracts from some of my favorite examples conscientiously designed to help enhance your vocabulary:

-- does anyone ever mention a single word or idea uttered by Sen. Edward Everett, the main speaker at the 19 November, 1863, Gettysburg dedication ceremony, who perorated for nearly two hours....

-- tomorrow’s annual meeting promises to be different: it’s not going to be some insufferable peroration

-- from an irritated person in the audience: “Please, my question does not call for a peroration. Just a simple…”

-- here is a simple technique to get a quick answer from someone who has a propensity to ramble or perorate at every opportunity…..

-- over the past 20 years, our State of the Union addresses having become unending and wearisome perorations; in the bitter fight over abortion, those for freedom of choice perorating against pro-lifers, and vice versa

-- during confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate for Supreme Court nominees, senators tending to perorate on one legal issue or the other instead of …..

-- some frustrated young workers in a Chinese city secretly telling Western interviewers about their servile employment

-- in the presence of his boss, he becomes so timid and submissive, even servile, that he’s barely audible

-- fawning officials bowing deeply, in a servile manner, when opening doors or….

-- do not behave obsequiously, and act like someone who is hopelessly servile

-- (if George W. Bush had been a very popular president during his last few years) current Republican presidential candidates would be trekking servilely to Dallas to …

-- a mule’s servility to his master…; successful CEOs surrounding themselves with smart people rather than servile employees; a bigwig who likes servile attention

-- in some cultures, a woman being required to show servile obedience to her husband

-- Amnesty International expressing solicitude for Saudi women (reference that nation’s laws barring females from driving)

-- our manager has consistently demonstrated solicitude for our health

-- my mother was applying, with tremendous solicitude, cold compresses on my forehead

-- if I see a stray dog on the street, my reaction is one of utmost solicitude for that…; she always showed great solicitude for my difficulties

-- a parent expressing so much solicitude for their teenager who has just gone to college that it borders on the overbearing and suffocating

-- the U.S., a melting pot because of the racial, ethnic, and cultural amalgamation that is constantly going on…

-- amalgamating three new parameters into the customer satisfaction index

-- he is a curious amalgam of contradictory and conflicting characteristics…; the food here is an amalgam of different cuisines from….; typical opera being an amalgam of singing, dancing, glittering sets….; the novel's hero is the amalgam of several remarkable people the author has met….

-- stock symbol HPQ appropriately representing the amalgamation of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq

-- the latest Harry Potter movie being praised as a wonderful amalgam of superb acting, gripping story, wall-to-wall action,….

-- France’s long-cherished goal of becoming a truly amalgamated nation

-- there’s no way you can effectively amalgamate these two subsidiaries because…

-- should these news reports really set off such hyperventilation throughout the nation?

-- on seeing their company’s founder and CEO up close for the first time, some of the employees began to hyperventilate

-- I’m hearing a lot of hyperventilated comments from employees about…

-- let me quickly call my boss….before he has a panic attack and starts to hyperventilate

-- dismissing a recent medical study, an expert saying: “the report is hyperventilating about small, inconsequential….”

-- following the release of the movie “Titanic,” teenaged girls swooning and hyperventilating if they saw Leonardo DiCaprio in public

-- some newspaper art, music, and theater reviews that are written in a hyperventilated style, packing language that is turgid, pompous, and bombastic

-- a travel website pointing out, justly, that guide books are “renowned for their glib hyperventilated prose”

-- a political neophyte; a neophyte at poker; neophyte investors falling victim to boiler-room stockbrokers

-- I agree that Diane is a marketing neophyte… but she is extremely smart and a quick study

-- being an absolute neophyte at trading when I was hired in your department, I was intimidated….

-- discouraging somebody from trying a blue run, the ski guide saying: “It’s not for the neophyte”

-- a presenter pausing to explain some of the jargon for the benefit of the neophytes in the audience

-- a computer manufacturer’s customer service department finding itself shorthanded because of the surprisingly high percentage of calls coming in from total neophytes


© Copyright 2011 V. J. Singal