Vocabulary Mnemonics

August 2, 2025

Matt’s words

Miasma (n):  a highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor; an atmosphere that corrupts

On the first day of school, there’s a miasma of nervousness.

A miasma of hate…

Mnemonic: “My asthma” is unpleasant, and it causes you to spew out vapor.

Salutatorian (n): second place to the valedictorian

The salutatorian’s really nice, but the valedictorian could work on his people skills.

Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

The auditorium erupted again and Tucker could barely hide his grin as he walked back to his seat, twirling his silver salutatorian tassle.

Mnemonic: Starts with “s” for “silver,” as in silver medal (second place).

Mnemonic 2: If you’re the salutatorian, you have to salute the valedictorian for being a little better.

Merism (n): emphasizing the whole by listing the extremes

I love you from morning til evening.

I’m excited from my head to my toes.

Psalm 139:2 Thou knowest my “downsitting and my uprising.” (Knows everything I do)

Mnemonic: A mare is a female horse. So imagine a talking horse saying all these merisms.

Ruction (n): disturbance; noisy fight; uproar

Suzy caused a ruction when she stole the remote from her brother.

Mnemonic: Starts off the same as “ruckus,” and means basically the same thing.

Badinage (n): banter; playful conversation

Mr. Rose has had a long, much vaunted career, but his strength isn’t reading cue cards or teleprompters, nor is he known for witty badinage. —New York Times, Jan 9, 2012

Each bus has a pair of hosts, whose badinageis corny but crowd-pleasing. —Patricia Marx, New Yorker, 5 May 2025

Mnemonic: You’re “battin” back and forth.

Mnemonic: Break it into “bad in age.” Your banter gets bad in/with age.

Dr. Mom’s words

Kompromat (n): describes compromising material, collected and used to discredit or blackmail individuals in business or political contexts, typically.

The congressman was behaving so strangely that his constituents began to wonder whether kompromat was being used behind the scenes to control him.

Mnemonic: The word is a portmanteau of “compro”mising and “mat”erial.

Deign (v): to condescend reluctantly and with a strong sense of the affront to one’s superiority that is involved; to stoop to or lower yourself to.

The proud king would only deign to allow subjects in his presence that were baron level or higher.

Mnemonic: A Great Dane, a proud, regal-seeming dog, is so large it must decide whether to stoop down to any other dog’s level. Does the Dane deign to getting eye to eye with a beagle?

Dilbert Principle (n): The most ineffective workers will be systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management. This satirical concept of management was created by Scott Adams (author, cartoonist, and podcaster).

Example of manager’s incompetence from Dec. 9, 2009 Dilbert cartoon: “Catching up to competition”

Dilbert’s boss suggests working day and night to match a competitor’s features within 12 months. Dilbert calmly asks whether they will be catching up to where the competitor will be in a year (which is unknowable) or to where the competitor is now (which would be stupid).

Mnemonic: Picture Dilbert in your mind. He is the one who sees through the pointy-haired boss.

Feckless (adj): lacking initiative or strength of character; irresponsible; weak

According to the Dilbert Principle, one will inevitably come across a feckless boss or two out there in the corporate world.

Mnemonic: A feckless person lacks feck. From the Scottish, feck means effect, so a feckless person is “effect”less. Weak.

Glower (v): to look or stare with sullen annoyance or anger; glare

My glower became a frown, and I folded my arms, leaning back against the couch. Merriam-Webster

The librarian glowered at us when she heard us laughing. Merriam-Webster

Mnemonic: When you glower at someone, your eyes might seem to glow, like the Devil’s, and it makes the other person cower with fear.

COLOSSAL COMPILATION:

The miasma surrounding my feckless, oft-glowering, merism-flaunting boss—a guy who was once a salutatorian but in adulthood personified the Dilbert Principle and rarely deigned evento toss a look in his underlings’ direction—devolved to the point that a ruction broke out in the office after a coworker joked during badinage that someone had gathered kompromat on him.