Vocabulary Mnemonics

August 16, 2025

Matt’s words

Holus bolus (adv): all at once; Bolus means “lump” and comes from “whole bolus.” 

She ate pack of gum holus bolus.

Come on, drink it. Holus bolus.

Mnemonic: Think of eating the “whole bowl.”

Haply (adv): by chance or luck

Johnny and I were both vacationing along the Gulf Coast, and haply we ran into each other.

Mnemonic: Think of “happy” but the “l” in there stands for luck. So it’s something lucky happening.

Proprioception (n): body awareness; ability to move without looking; proprioception is defined as the body’s ability to sense its own position and movements. It is an automatic process that allows the brain to understand the position of the body in space without relying solely on visual input. Proprioception is crucial for maintaining balance and coordinating movements. – Cleveland Clinic

Proprioception could be referred to as our sixth sense.

Pollard says her clients with yoga backgrounds tend to have better proprioception and body-awareness. —Matt Fuchs, TIME

Mnemonic: Proprio is “own” or “proper,” plus receptors.

Scrimshank (v): be lazy; shirk your work (especially in the military)

Private, this scrimshanking won’t do; get to work!

Mnemonic: “Scrim” is kind of like skim. You’ll get shanked if you skim or scrim on your work.

Soothfast (adj): truthful; honest

Son, always be a soothfast man. Never compromise your character.

Mnemonic: Being true soothes people the fastest.

Dr. Mom’s words

Excursive (adj): constituting a digression; going “off on a tangent,” rambling, deviating

Sometimes it’s the excursive story lines that make a novel especially captivating.

The woman’s excursive thoughts carried her away from the task at hand, lost in a sea of possibilities.

Mnemonic: An “excursion” takes you off physically to someplace. Excursive speaking does that verbally.

Interlocutor (n): a person who takes part in a conversation or dialogue

But what really rankles is the idea that these digital interlocutors are a plausible substitute for real friends and family. Paul Bloom, New Yorker, 14 July 2025

Mnemonic: Break the word down. “Inter” means across or between, and “loqui” in Latin means to speak. (Think of loquacious, eloquent, grandiloquence, etc.) It means talk between parties.

Motley (adj): exhibiting a great diversity of elements, appearance, or character; multicolored; disparate. Court jesters’ comical-looking outfits were called motleys (n).

The crowd seemed to be a motley crew of discontents and zealots.

When children go to school, they are often exposed to a motley of people from different cultures and religions.

Mnemonic #1: “Mot” comes from “mote” in Middle English, which means “speck.” (Biblical reference: Matthew 7:3-5 “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”) Think of a mottled appearance (blotchy, spotty). Imagine a fabric made up of a spotty mixture of colors.

Mnemonic #2: Remember the heavy metal band Motley Crue? It was formed by a varied-looking cast of characters that were incongruous with each other and with the way “regular” people dress or appear.

Kidlin’s law (n): A problem-solving concept that says: “If you can write the problem down clearly, then the matter is half solved.”  

I have found Kidlin’s law to be true in my life as I’ve tried to analyze various challenges I’ve faced.

Mnemonic: If you’ve ever tried to build a fire, you know what “kindling” is. It’s smallish bits of wood that will light easily, making it possible to gradually add bigger logs later. Your thoughts as you write the problem down clearly form the basis for solving the bigger problem down the road.

Abeyance (adj): temporary cessation or suspension

Usually, at the conclusion of the proceedings, final disposition was held in abeyance, and the alien would remain on bond,” Ms. Galvin wrote.– New York Times, Feb. 18, 2012

Mnemonic: If you hold something “at bay,” you keep it away from you. The thing is still out there, but it’s temporarily not concerning you.

COLOSSAL COMPILATION:

Scrimshanking his yardwork duties, Uncle Larry became intrigued by an excursive and largely soothfast interlocution he haply and holus bolus overheard as Aunt Louise engaged with a motley bunch of their neighbors about, of all things, her application of Kidlin’s law to hold in abeyance her recent difficulties with proprioception.