The other day, I learned a new-to-me word…
I was lying in bed watching My Lady Jane, when one of the words hit me like a truck: detumescence. The main characters were lying in bed, after sleeping together, and the narrator said, “Should she tell Guildford [some bad news] now and perhaps sour this blissful detumescence, or should she wait?” Have you heard that word before? I googled it, and the definition is “the process of subsiding from a state of…sexual arousal.” I texted the screenwriter (and my bff) Gemma to say that I was into it, and she told me, “I like words, and I think audiences are smart; I use the best words I can think of, always.”
Gemma’s text reminded me of a similar quote I read in a bookstore window years ago, from E.B. White: “Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth…. Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.”
Case in point: Have you ever read The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter? The very first sentence: “It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific.’” The word ‘soporific’ to kickstart a book for children ages three and up? It works! Kids can handle it! Audiences are smart!
One final word I’ve loved recently? In London last weekend, Anton was getting ready for bed, and I was chatting away, and he turned to me, deadpan, and said, “Bro, I didn’t order a yappuccino.” Hahaha, I laughed for 45 minutes.
What cool words have you learned or used lately? Let’s nerd out below…
P.S. Using big words with little kids, hot guys being polysyllabic, and my embarrassing vocab blunder.
(Photo from Normal People.)
