Vocabulary Mnemonics

Sept. 20, 2025

Matt’s words

Veblen good (n):an item whose demand goes up with its price; e.g., a Rolex watch, jewelry

Mnemonic: You go to a jewelry store to buy a Rolex. They have a beautiful web necklace. You ask, “Is that a web?” The Swiss jeweler says, Yes, it’s a “veb.” A veblen good.

Raconteur (n):storyteller

Grandpa, a true raconteur, loved to regale us with stories of the old days.

Mnemonic: The word sounds a lot like “recount-er.”

Cairn (n): heap of stones serving as a landmark

Inside every cairn, the team unearthed countless human and animal bones, often fragmented. —Aspen Pflughoeft, Miami Herald, 28 Mar. 2025

Mnemonic: Sounds like “caring.” Someone was caring enough to create the cairn.

Numinous (adj):having a spiritual quality to it; suggesting the presence of divinity

The site has a numinous feel to it.

Much is achieved through the simple act of exhibiting the numinous paintings of Varo and those of other women such as Leonora Carrington and Dorothea Tanning, who the misogynist Breton counted as muses rather than artists. —Jonathon Keats, Forbes.com, 29 Apr. 2025

Mnemonic: Rhymes with luminous, which means to give off light. Numinous doesn’t just give off light; it emits a new, spiritual light.

Bathetic (adj): overly sentimental; trite (i.e., overused, like  tropes in romantic comedies)

His attempt to serenade his girlfriend turned into a bathetic, awkward encounter.

For a globe-tracking narrative, some of the scenes which stand out in Episode 1 are the batheticvignettes of Havelange’s domestic life, as his wife bears the brunt of an absent husband…. —John Hopewell, Variety, 14 Oct. 2022

Mnemonic: Bath is in there – bathetic phrases are supposed to make you bathe yourself in tears, but they just turn out kind of pathetic.

Dr. Mom’s words

Peremptory (adj): insisting on immediate attention or obedience, especially in a brusquely imperious way; tending to impose one’s will on others; authoritarian

“Just do it!” came the peremptory reply.

In a peremptory tone, the flight attendant told the passenger to either fasten his seatbelt or get off the plane.

Mnemonic: Peremptory begins with “per emp.” Imagine you are told something “per the emperor.” It comes from the top, and you are required to do it.

Lollygag (v): to fool around or waste time; dawdle

Stop lollygagging and get to work!

We were slow because the girl was lollygagging, the photographer was photographing, and I was on crutches. —James Robison

Mnemonic: Think of someone named Lolly gagging. If she’s gagging, she certainly can’t be doing anything else productive. If you didn’t know better, you’d think she was dawdling.

Furcula (n): a forked process or part; a wishbone or wishbone-shaped object

To play the turkey wishbone game, two people think about a wish while each is pulling on opposite ends of the furcula. —Karla Walsh, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Oct. 2023

The critter’s technique comes from two special body parts: an appendage called a furcula, which smacks the water to launch it into the air, and an abdominal tube known as a collophore, which holds a droplet of water to stabilize its flight and act as an anchor on its landing. —Carlyn Kranking, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Dec. 2022

Mnemonic: Furcula begins like fork, so think “fork-ula.”

Hullabaloo (n): a commotion or uproar

Somebody heard the splash and they raised an awful hullabaloo. ‘He’s gone! Lower the boats! …’ —Joseph Conrad

Mnemonic: People on a cruise ship are standing on the hull surrounded by a million balloons. All of a sudden, they start popping, and there’s pandemonium. A hullabaloo ensues.

Comeuppance (n): a deserved rebuke or penalty; getting your “just deserts”

One of these days, he’ll get his comeuppance for treating people so arrogantly. Merriam-Webster

Mnemonic: Picture a large anteater standing over an anthill. He taunts the ants saying, “Come up, ants!” and when they do, he does a whack-a-mole and smacks them down with his snout. They are getting their comeuppance.

COLOSSAL COMPILATION:

A hullabaloo ensued after the typically numinous but on this occasion borderline bathetic raconteur—in the middle of recounting how a cairn which included a furcula became a veblen good—stunned her audience by unexpectedly adopting a peremptory tone with some lollygagging listeners and shouted something about their getting their comeuppance.