Vocabulary Mnemonics

May 24, 2024

Matt’s words

Bucolic (adj): pastoral; rustic; relating to the pleasant aspects of the country

Sentence: “This fall we’re staying at a quant, bucolic cottage in the country.”

“The bucolic scenery…”

“The bucolic town…”

Mnemonic: Baby colic, or having a colicky child, means the child cries a lot. Well, we all know nature is healthful. Especially beautiful country. So, you take your colicky child to the beautiful country. Combined, that’s bucolic – beautiful colic.

Nonplussed (adj): confused; baffled; perplexed; puzzled

Sentence: “The teacher was nonplussed when her top student do basic math.”

“I was nonplussed by the cat riding a bicycle.”

Mnemonic: You’re taking a math test and the teacher gives you questions with non-plusses. It’s confusing. You’re baffled.

All these non-plusses have left you nonplussed.

Opprobrium (n): condemnation; disgrace from shameful conduct

Sentence: “When video of the mayor’s crime surfaced, he faced widespread opprobrium.”

Mnemonic: Think of an “O” probe. It’s a probe that searches for “ohhh” secrets.

 Fumarole (n): vent in the Earth’s surface that emits steam and volcanic gases

Sentence: “Studying fumaroles can help you know if an eruption is likely.”

“Tourists love to admire the many fumaroles in Iceland.”

Mnemonic: Think “fumes.” It’s almost like the fumes are rolling at you

Phlegmatic (adj): cool; unruffled; not easily upset

Sentence: “The umpire remained phlegmatic through the angry coach’s tirade.”

“The phlegmatic temperament…”

Mnemonic: This word is rooted in phlegm. When you have a cold, you produce more phlegm.

So, that’s how you can remember that phlegmatic means being cool under pressure.

Dr. Mom’s words

Fallacy (n): a false or mistaken idea

The adjective form is “fallacious,” tending to deceive or mislead

Sentence: “Ad hominem attacks are logical fallacies commonly employed by politicians.”    

Mnemonic: A fallacy is false (right at the beginning of the word). Don’t fall for a fallacy or for fallacious falsehoods.

Sophistry (n): the deliberate, unscrupulous use of clever but fallacious argument to persuade; from Greek philosophy

Sentence: “Sometimes when a person doesn’t have a good argument, they resort to sophistry to try to persuade.”

Mnemonic #1: Sounds like “soft history,” with “soft” in this context meaning “weak, unreliable, not to be counted on.” Soft history wouldn’t be accurate, so you wouldn’t repeat what you’ve learned. The same is true of the information a sophist tells you.

Mnemonic #2: Begins like “sophomore,” the youngest grade in high school. A sophomore is more likely to fall for, or resort to, sophistry than a “senior” person.

Stochastic (adj): random; having a random probability distribution that is consequently not great for making predictions; examples include the growth of some populations, emission of radioactive particles, or movements of financial markets

Sentence: “Even fancy computers may struggle when solving stochastic problems because of the randomness of the data.”

Mnemonic: Think “elastic stochastic.” Elastic stochastic processes models can bend and differ every time you work with them due to the randomness of the variables.

Wax (v): to increase in phase or intensity or to become or evolve into something else”

Sentence: “Even my reticent friend publicly waxed poetic at the sight of a beautiful sunset.”

Mnemonic: The noun form of “wax” means the substance that melts down while a candle is burning. The gooey, flowing mass builds up (increases), getting thicker over time. By the time it has burned down, it looks completely different. So if something or someone waxes, it increases or builds up. It could also change and become something different.    

Wane (v): to decrease, diminish, dwindle

Sentence: “It is disheartening while teaching to watch the students’ attention and enthusiasm wane right before your eyes.”

Mnemonic: Wane rhymes with the name Wayne, as in Bruce Wayne, the alter ego of Batman. As he turns into Batman, the mere mortal Bruce Wayne wanes away into non-existence.

To “wax and wane” is to grow and diminish, a metaphor for much of life.

Big sentence: The normally phlegmatic professor, who relished observing the waxing and waning of the moon at his bucolic summer home, became first nonplussed but soon outright fumarolic after experiencing the opprobrium of sophists who fallaciously attacked his research as entirely stochastic in nature.  

BIG sentence:

The normally phlegmatic professor, who relished observing the waxing and waning of the moon at his bucolic summer home, became first nonplussed but soon outright fumarolic after experiencing the opprobrium of sophists who fallaciously attacked his research as entirely stochastic in nature.