Vocabulary Mnemonics

June 22, 2024

Matt’s words

Convivial: friendly; lively; enjoyable

The convivial host brought joy to all her guests.

Mnemonic: Break out your Spanish. “con” means “with,” as in chili con carne.

“vivo” means “live,” like en vivo.

So, convivial means “with life.”

Ersatz: substitute; synthetic or artificial

Las Vegas’s New York, New York, the ersatz version of the famous skyline, doesn’t quite live up to the original.

Mnemonic: Within the word you have “SATs.” Think of a substitute teacher. She’s new and doesn’t know what the tests. So, she says, “today we’re taking the, uh, er-sats.

Halcyon: happy

Those halcyon days, when the future was so bright.

Mnemonic: Think of the old TV show Happy Days. Now imagine HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, appears. But this version of HAL is happy.

Jalopy: old, rundown car

If this jalopy can last six more month, I’ll be happy.

Mnemonic: Think sloppy jalopy.

Mnemonic 2: Think of an old car with its top lopped off. It’s a jalopy.

Bugbear: continuing source of frustration.

Think Meathead on All in the Family.

His overbearing neighbor was a constant bugbear.

Mnemonic: Picture the most annoying person in your life. Now imagine this person with a bug’s head and a bear’s body.

Dr. Mom’s words

Vernacular: (n) the language or dialect spoken by ordinary people; common, everyday speech

“It really helped that the lawyer spoke to me in the vernacular so I could make sense of what she said.”

Mnemonic: Break the word into “Vern,” “knack,” and “lar,” or large. Vern has a knack for speaking to large audiences because he uses language the common person can understand.

Poltroon: (n) an utter coward

“All you poltroons out there?” Grow a spine and join us on our adventure!”

Mnemonic: The “poltr” at the beginning helps you think of poultry, which is includes chicken.

Eon (n): an indefinitely long period of time; an age. Astronomy: one billion years

Sentence: “Geological and astronomical changes are often measured in terms of eons rather than years.”

Mnemonic: “E-yawn, e-yawn, e-yawn…” Take those yawns and go on and on and on…forever.

Adumbrate: (v) to foreshadow vaguely; to intimate, hint at

“You’ll have to do better than adumbrate to the children about the dangers of running out in the street.”

Mnemonic: “Umbr” is in the word, so think of an umbrella used to shade you. You hold the umbrella to cast a shadow in front of you, or foreshadow you. There’s just a hint of the sun up there. (Without a shadow of a doubt, this is a good word to know.)

Obsequious: (adj) sucking up; exhibiting fawning attention; attentive to a servile degree

“The fundraiser’s obsequious behavior toward the donor was downright cringy.”

Mnemonic: Obviously-sucking-up

BIG sentence:

Eons ago, during the halcyon days before my now shamelessly obsequious, rarely convivial, jalopy-driving ersatz friend became an utter poltroon and bugbear, she adumbrated that, to use the vernacular, we were BFFs.