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In a discussion in my office this morning, I mentioned how I had first heard the word "absent" when I was eight years old. It was in the first year of junior school and my new teacher was referring to kids who weren't in class. In infants school, such kids had simply been "away".

So, can you remember the circumstances under which you heard a certain word for the first time?

― MarkH, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Vacant.

Toilet door.

Six.

― Pete, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i remember hearing the word "antibodies" for the first time when i was about five. we were watching the news and there was a piece on AIDS research, how they were trying to find antibodies for it. i don't know why that sticks in my mind.

― katie, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My first big boys' sentence was at the age of two, when I implored my mother to "Give me my dinner immediately". I heard someone saying it on the telly, and it seemed to work for them. In fact, I've been repeating it ever since.

― Trevor, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Goodwood" - the make of a child's trolley (carrying wooden bricks), about 6 years old. Imagine my surprise when the next day there was horseracing on TV - live from Goodwood! I *was* confused.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have Charles Schultz to thank for introducing "sarcastic", "ridiculous" and"wishy-washy" into my vocabulary at age 4.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't believe I forgot "opthomologist".

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

coincidentally just last night I confessed to a friend of mine that i always associate the word "freelance" with Terrance Dicks -- Doctor Who novel writing person. i first read the word in the "about the author" bits of every single one of his drwho books. she (the friend) was very understanding.

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I associate the words "Trewartha", "Toraneko" and "kjgrocott" with ILE. This happened when I was 27.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

However, the words "smiley drunken DJ girl with stripey socks and bass appeal" have been with me for about 12 months longer.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I had to read a part of 'Walkabout' in my entrance interview for school, aged 10 or 11. I was tested on the meaning of various words and the only one I'd never come across was 'recalcitrant'. Mr Johnson said not to worry about that one - only one kid had known it so far. I bet it was Luke Geitzen. Word was used in relation to the girl's stockings, I seem to recall.

― Nick, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Cynical". At age 13 (v late). My school report said I was "in danger of turning into a cynical vegetable" so I looked it up. I liked the idea and the danger was not really averted.

― Tom, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

haha i just remembered a v.absurd one: in SHADOW THE SHEEPDOG by E.Blyton it sez "A change came over the sky" — I knew the word change (I was six maybe) but not in this context. So I mentally pronounced it "Changay", and took the story to be stating that a flying chariot had just passed over the dogs and sheep, to no obvious narrative purpose.

Slightly older, I was also very disappointed as to how matters turned out in another book I got out of the Junior School library: viz The Pony and the Trap

― mark s, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I hate to lower the tone, but my word is masterbation. When I was about seven my mum had a Marks and Spencer book called 'Your Growing Child'. I used to read it to see what stage of progress I should be at. There was one page entitled 'Masterbation and Sex Play' which was illustrated by a photo of a little girl, alone, putting two dolls into bed together. The paragraph underneath started 'Matserbation, or playing with oneself...' For YEARS I thought masterbation meant playing with toys on your own and couldn't figure out why it was on the sex page. I never tried out my new found vocabulary though.

― Anna, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one of my school reports sed: "Much of his work is inchoate, but he also sees light where others only see darkness". Thus my mum and dad and I *ALL* learnt the meaning of the word "inchoate" at the same time.

― mark s, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Can I be really embaressed and put Verisimiltude down to Teenage Fanclub. I used it constantly for a while to produce the verismilitude that I used the word verisimiltude before Teenage Fanclub released the single.

― Pete, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And so can we. I pledge to use it at some point this evening.

― Graham, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Ironic', no not Alanis Morissette but an Alexei Sayle sketch some time in the 80s...I can picture it but am not quite sure when it was.

― DG, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mark C are you stalking me? or some other drunken, stripey sock wearing fool? :)

― katie, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love Anna's story! Er... 'chthonic' - in a book on Vergil.

― Will, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Incisive" because - oh dear - I read it in a Smiths review at 14 and wanted to find out if the reviewer was dissing or praising my new favourite band.

― Tom, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

at age 13 I was called unduly vociferous by my chemistry teacher, when I looked it up in the dictionary I had to agree with him.

― chris, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

when me and my bro were wee we used to sit down and watch Blackadder II with our mam. a word that was often used on that series was "fornicate" so imagine our mam's surprise when my brother announced one morning that he was just off for a "quick fornicate"! he must have been about 6.

― katie, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mum was convinced she had a child prodigy on her hands when I used the word zany in a game of junior scrabble (aged 7ish?) I still don't see what's so exceptional about it - I probably got it from the Beano. Aged 16, Mrs. Creswell taught us trite, platitude and cliche in one of our first 'A' Level English Lit. classes and later that year, verbiage and circumlocution. She used many of these in her 'constructive' criticism of my essays, as well as the never forgotten phrase "you obviously haven't spent enough time on this, redo 4/10" after I'd slaved over a piece of work for ages and ages and ages. Hmm, where's that cockfarmer thread...

― Madchen, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Smiffs learnin' - 'satiate'.

― Nick, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Maybe 'zany' impressed your mum because of its lofty origins in the Commedia dell'Arte...

― Will, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

where were you when you first came across the word "cockfarmer"?

― mark s, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i was pretty much where i am right now.

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like Dan's answer, of course. Oh, and "fussbudget." In separate news, there was the time I first heard "wanking," "lube" and "copulation," but that might have been a bad dream.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sounds a GRATE dream to me

― mark s, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Late learnin' of common words:

Age 8/9: Doing kiddie crossword type thing at school. Stuck on 4 letter word meaning 'expensive'. Mr Weston tells me it's 'dear' and expresses surprise when I say I have never heard the word used to mean that. I put my ignorance down to being too posh.

Age 22: 'Close' in the metereological sense of 'muggy'. Co-worker stares at me in disbelief when I say I don't know what she's on about.

― Nick, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Must be a too posh thing, in as much as to poshos nothing is too expensive or dear.

― Pete, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

meteorological

― Nick, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh Nick, you've just reminded me... Aged 6, Mrs Crosby's class. In my book there were pictures of lots of different balloons, all with a different price. The question was 'which balloon is the dearest?' and my answer was the cute little pink one, which cost only 1p. I was very cross that such an ambiguous (ambiguous and ambivalent, Mrs Creswell words) word had been used and told my teacher exactly what I thought of the stupid book.

― Madchen, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I on the other hand am the world's second commonest bird after the chicken as the only word I can think of to answer the question is bookmakers, I was the only kid in Primary School (not sure of exact age) who knew what it meant thanks to my dodgy family background.

― Emma, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Katie, we have met before, you know! But yes, you're right, I'm stalking you. Be afraid - I might try and talk smut at you.

On a slightly tangential tip, how to pronounce words was always more surprising for me. May-knee-ackle, for example. Or seeg (both words I used until well into my twenties). And try pronouncing anxiety if you don't pick up on the "ang" sound at the beginning. Ankshitty was the best I could do.

One of my favourite life experiences was asking my ex's cousin (who I loathed) how to spell banal. B-e-n-i-l-e, apparently. Hehe.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I only know five words.

― Ally C, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Seeg?

― Madchen, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sikh?

― Nick, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Soon after learning, I briefly (ie once) pronounced segue seeg.

― Graham, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That's ok Pete. I only gave in and finally looked up the proper meaning of nomenclature one day because I'd just heard it in a Posies song.

― Kim, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, I see. I learned 'segue' off John Peel when I was about 14. Otherwise perhaps I would have gone the 'seeg' way. So Mark, that means you're saying 'may-knee-ackle' is wrong???

― Nick, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I avoided this mispronounciation thing thanks to the large Random House dictionary that lived under the telly stand. When I heard or saw an unfamiliar word, I'd look it up when I had access to the dictionary. This came in handy when I was eight and wanted to know what the word 'rape' meant.

My uncle clearly had never been in company that had used the word he pronounced 'decay-dent.' It was so hard not to laugh.

― suzy, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I learned the word "adolescent" from my Madeleine L'Engle books in elementary school and used it in conversation with my brother, who then repeated it to my mother. She said sometihng along the lines of, "How cute, he mispronounced it because he's only seen it in print. What a brilliant boy, ahead of his age." I resented not getting the credit for that for years whenever I thought of it.

― Maria, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I learned grotesque from a comic book. I though it was pronounced Grot-es-que. As an aside, I will always hate teachers who said 'spell things like they sound".

― james, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

First heard the word "nautilus" in 5th-grade spelling bee. My only exposure to it prior was on work-out equipment at my parents' gym, but I had never heard it spoken. It was my Waterloo. "N.. a.. u.. g.. h.. t.. e.. l.. e.. s.. s?"

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

For a long time, I thought that the phonetically-spelled "ee-PIT-oh- mee" and the phonetically-spelled "EP-ee-tohm" were synonymous but different words. I could not connect the "epitome" spelling to that first pronounciation to save my life, which led to an incredibly embarrassing showoff-moment-that-backfired-horribly-leaving-me- scarred.

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

At one point I said "biased" for the first time ever and it came out "biassed." I was laughed at quite a lot. In Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience he spells it that way, so I have a defense now.

― Maria, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I always thought Canada was Canadia. I reckon the pinketron enjoys moday's in canadia.

― james, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't remember how old I was (upwards of 5, I reckon) when I saw the word 'kiosk' while on a beach holiday. I thought it sounded better as "koisk". Still do.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't remember learning any specific words but I remember learning about years, and how they were numbered: "1983, wow! There's been that many years?!"

― rainy, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The first words I remember would be hot! I found this out by sticking my finger into a light socket. when the bulb was out of it! Ouch!I was 2 Y/O Gale

― Gale Deslongchamps, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My first words reportedly on waking: "too bright!" = definitely destiny in my case.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

a) late sleeper b) smartypants

(which would make Gale "hot"!)

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

James! :) That's nothing tho... an online friend of mine from Australia (Alan Jackson aka Y1, who I miss very much by the way if you're out there somewhere)once told me that he always thought that the province of Manitoba was actually called Manitobiloba, which is obviously a much better name really, and also I reckon that Glof lives there.

― Kim, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My first word was supposedly "Pretty," referring to a fire. I'd say that charts the course of my life so far.

Rainy - I remember something like that with the years, only the opposite, sort of. I saw a program on TV about people doing things in 300 A.D., and I didn't know about all the B.C. centuries so I was very impressed that people were able to have civilization after only 300 years. I must have figured it was like a 3-year-old being unable to live on its own, and by the age of 19 it'd be fine.

― Maria, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

According to my mum, I didn't actually speak until I was about two and a half. I'd had meningitis when I was just under a year old so my mum was scared I'd been damaged by it. In any case, I could read at about the same time the talking started. Apparently this was proved when I walked over to the icebox, pointed at the logo, and very carefully pronounced: 'Frigidaire!'

Also, measurements. I spent a while in hospital starting when I was four and a half and nicknamed the nurse who came in to get urine samples 'CC's' because that was the way she measured the amounts she collected.

― suzy, Tuesday, 13 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Susurration - in Captain Corelli's Mandolin

― Will, Thursday, 15 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

james: it is CANADIA. say it say it say it. we are england-landers and those hosers live in canadia.

― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 15 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

I've just noticed Mark S used inchoate in print. Can somebody poke him please?

― Graham (graham), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 11:13 (twenty-three years ago)

He'd like that!

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 11:33 (twenty-three years ago)

i saw a sign saying 'kiosk' on the beach when i was 7 or so. i thought it said 'koisk'.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 11:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Re Dan's epitome: I had the same problem with "gauge".

― Sam (chirombo), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 12:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Mitch did you know that you already said that?

I was once sticking up for a kid who was being teased by a teacher. This teacher was quite sleazy. We were walking somewhere on a class trip. I was twelve. The teacher said to me, "Maryann, you know what your problem is?" I said, "What?" He said, "You have no empathy." I begged and begged that he tell me what empathy meant, asking if it was similar to sympathy but he insisted that I look it up in the dictionary.

Ever since then I've hated the word empathy, and been suspicious of its use. Was it weird that my teacher said that? I still can't figure the situation out. Surely since I was sticking up for someone else, I didn't have NO empathy, but lacked empathy for his position. Did he perhaps not know what it meant himself? It plagues me still!

Rainy and Maria, I loved those two things about the years.

― maryann (maryann), Thursday, 28 November 2002 05:39 (twenty-three years ago)

One of my earliest memories, growing up next to a large raspberry patch by a lake with a small field between us and the next door neighbors. When i wanted to walk across the field to the neighbors', I would cut small 'shoe-sole' shaped pieces of paper out of a legal pad, and color toes and and the ball and heel of my feet in bright colored markers on the top, and tie them to my feet with strings. I called them "Soap Operas."

― B, Thursday, 28 November 2002 05:56 (twenty-three years ago)

i amn still cross about the pony and the trap!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 29 November 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

along with the rest of my class,i learned the word procrastinate in sixth year (age 17) when we studied hamlet...

― robin (robin), Monday, 20 January 2003 02:17 (twenty-three years ago)

When I was 14, I pointed out to my friend how funny it was that people had public hair on their private places. Seconds later I learnt the word 'pubic'. That's what happens to most of my witty comments.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 20 January 2003 02:29 (twenty-three years ago)

when i was 10 or so, i read the word "gigolo" in shel silverstein's "uncle shelby's abz's", where they write it with a picture of a clarinet or something, so i went around saying i wanted to be a gigolo... then my friend and i were being interviewed by the local paper for something and they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up and that's what i said...

― dave k, Monday, 20 January 2003 06:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Promulgate - when I started my first job as a Civil Servant, aged 19.

― smee (smee), Monday, 20 January 2003 12:09 (twenty-three years ago)

When I was 14, I pointed out to my friend how funny it was that people had public hair on their private places
this would never have happened at my school, where there was much talk abt 'pubes'.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 20 January 2003 13:06 (twenty-three years ago)

two years pass...

Quite some funnyness on this thread!

I remember the pleasure of coming across and learning the meaning of "copse". Interesting for a kid because of the resemblance to corpse. Also from books: "garnet" (which I loved because of the sound and because I mistakenly thought it was for an olivey green colour which I liked), "chameleon"...I started learning words from record reviews: "surreal" "sublime" "seminal".

Lots of names from books: Stephen (which my sister and I pronounced Step-hen for a while), Emil, Rory, Phoebe...

"Fatigue" and "poignant" from school spelling lists.
"Omnipotent" and "Omniscient" from sunday school/ christian camp.
I remember puzzling on "petrified" and "fidelity" from dad's pere ubu record...same with "coma" hearing the Smiths' Girlfriend in a Coma on the radio.

There were the words that I found out most (?) other people used that our family didn't: "fart" (not telling what we said! My best friend and her mum ridiculed me when they found out I didn't know "fart") and "flannel" (for face-cloth thingy...we said "washer")

We had a kind of partly directed playtime every day in primmers that the teachers called "Develop Mental" but I understood it as being one word (a strange and impenetrable one): developmental.

I remember my friend asking me what "twat" meant when we were 11 (I knew). She had "sex" written in pen on her hand when we first met aged 10 which I thought was terribly exciting and daring.

I started using "sadist" not knowing what it meant. Having assumed a meaning vaguely in the vicinity of "someone who acts in a sad-making way" (or something) my friend picked up on it and we kept calling her little sister it (pronounced Saddist). I knew I was out of my depth.

― cuspidorian (cuspidorian), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I really can't remember learning ANY words at all - they've all just crept into my vocabulary. The only exception is "penumbra", which I remember learning from Will Self, and have since used several times to the general bemusement of whomever I'm talking to (which of course makes it a rubbish word, so I really must stop).

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember learning "stingy" very early; I'd just learned to read, and I was waiting in line with my mom in a pharmacy. I saw a children's book, picked it up and began reading aloud to pass the time. When I hit the word, I pronounced it "sting-e" and Mom corrected me. I guess I was about three.

Thet're really the only word I can remember learning, outside of studying for the GREs.

― sugarpants (sugarpants), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Gorgeous. From the nurse to my right when I was born.

― lucifer, Wednesday, 9 February 2005 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

"andouillette" was described to me as "like a big sausage." when i spat out the first moutful a fuller description followed. after which i decided i quite liked it.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 9 February 2005 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

My mum's sister is called Maureen (nickname = Mony)

I was 6 years old and watching a news item about cot death.

Cue the question: "Mum, why is Aunty Mony killing all these babies?"

― JTS, Friday, 29 July 2005 23:47 (twenty years ago)

Around 2nd or 3rd grade the word "ajar" was mentioned in school. I was annoyed and skeptical that there could be any words that short that I hadn't learned yet.

― I know some come from the reality (wetmink), Friday, 29 July 2005 23:58 (twenty years ago)

dentist/ when I was 5

― Judith Deslongchamps (Judith), Sunday, 31 July 2005 01:50 (twenty years ago)

ihttp://imageworld.741.com/photos4/thumbnails/simpsons-_justin_timberlake.jpg

― gear (gear), Sunday, 31 July 2005 02:04 (twenty years ago)

I vividly remember a teacher snapping "SIT ELSEWHERE!" at me in maybe 2nd grade, for I think I rudely shoved my way to the front of the group of kids. I was a bit like that. Anyway, I didnt know what elsewhere meant! I remember sitting there feeling very confused (and bemused) til the teacher pointed towards the back of the room and glared at me.

Meep.

― Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 31 July 2005 02:20 (twenty years ago)

why would she say "St Elsewhere!" ???

― gear (gear), Sunday, 31 July 2005 02:23 (twenty years ago)

SIT elsewhere ;P

― Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 31 July 2005 02:25 (twenty years ago)

eight months pass...

"gusto"

i was reading a pippi longstocking book so prob about age 5 or 6. she goes to someone's house for tea or something, and she basically stuffs her face "with gusto". i can't remember the phrasing but it made it sound as though gusto was some kind of dressing or salt, so i looked it up in whatever dictionary i had, couldn't find it, went to grownups' dictionary, wasn't in that either. for some reason i didn't want to ask anyone what it was, and it wasn't until a few years later i twigged what it meant.

My mum's sister is called Maureen (nickname = Mony)

I was 6 years old and watching a news item about cot death.

Cue the question: "Mum, why is Aunty Mony killing all these babies?"

i don't get it. help?

― emsk ( emsk), Friday, 21 April 2006 20:42 (twenty years ago)

I'm guessing that it's antimony, an element in that nice Periodic Table innit?

― MarkH (MarkH), Sunday, 23 April 2006 01:41 (twenty years ago)

but what's that got to do with cot death/sids?

― emsk ( emsk), Sunday, 23 April 2006 22:35 (twenty years ago)

"condom"

When I was about 8 or 9 I had a radio which I would listen to late at night. I understood then that AIDS was a disease, but I thought it was something you could catch a bit like a cold. The advert on the radio would say "Remember Always Use A Condom", which in my head was a kind of machine, like a burglar alarm, that you installed in your house and disspelled any of this AIDS stuff you might catch. I remember being very worried that we didn't use a condom in our household, but was quite sure there was one in my friend Gregg's. Looking back, it probably was a burglar alarm.

― dog latin (dog latin), Sunday, 23 April 2006 22:50 (twenty years ago)

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