Words of the Day: Special Edition

Today's words are some of those which sound nothing like they should. Mandy will just have to live with the fact that I am not giving myself points for these, mainly because I already knew the definitions for most of them.

1. Pulchritude. Might as well mean ugliness instead of beauty. Or at least something like a bad attitude.

2. Bucolic. Sounds like some sort of disease that causes gassy indigestion rather than relating to a rural countryside.

3. Flummery. Should be an adjective used to describe a woman who wears flowing, ankle-length skirts, grows her hair really long, and flings her arms around a lot when she talks. Or maybe it should just describe Stevie Nicks. She seems very flummery. But flummery is actually a noun, and it is a soft jelly or porridge made with flour or meal. Ew. I like my version better.

4. Lacunae. Ought to be a synonym for chrysalis. Don't ask me why. It seems I am coming across it everywhere, and I still don't know what it means. It's the plural of lacuna, which is the title of Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel (I haven't read it). Grushin used it in The Dream Life of Sukhanov. "She had never been easy to understand, and he had long since learned to allow her small pockets of privacy by not dwelling on her manifold silences and not pursuing to its hidden origin her every expression or gesture or even absence, habitually interpreting these mysterious lacunae as evidence of her unique brand of feminine mystique." I am also re-reading The Amnesiac, and in it the main character, James, is trying to recall a song. He can only think of two of its lines, which are followed by, "Ellipsis. Lacuna. And then . . . the chorus." My guess would be something like "empty space." Webster says: Well, would you look at that. Of course it doesn't mean chrysalis, but it does mean a blank space or missing part; gap; a small cavity, pit, or discontinuity in an anatomical structure. 

5. Gred. My first college roommate and I wondered how people began using words like "cool" and "rad" to mean, well, "cool" and "rad." We figured it had to start somewhere, so we decided to make up our own word: Gred. It didn't catch on.

What would you add to the list?