Sometimes I surprise myself when I am looking for the right word (for example, recently, romp: meaning sexual activity, especially illicitly) and the word just comes to me (I don’t remember where I saw a word exactly) and I do a quick check and yes, it fits the vocabulary void, so I use it.
Does this happen to anyone else? It never ceases to amaze me.
in spite of my vocabulary being quite good, there was a period as a child, say about ten, when I would repeat “big words” I had only heard and did not look up, so used them wrong and my father would catch me and correct me. I am, of course, grateful for his corrections after all this time.
I really like the feature of Google which gives you a line graph over time and shows you how popular a word is in certain years. I actually think I’m responsible for the popularizing of “gatekeeping” online and some others including actually back on AIM “brb”. Maybe others in my turn of phrase (romp anybody?) will also come forward.
