vocabulary

I must note a difference of opinion [between John Scalzi and the poster] with regard to the word "alright", which John proclaims is not even a word. And he thinks it's ugly. Whether it is ugly is a matter of taste, and I shan't argue that. Whether it is a word, though... well, it's definitely a word, since it has boundaries and is used to convey meaning.

And you thought your vocabulary was good? Try these words on for size.

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# esper (n.)
# Faraday cage (n.)
# FTL (adj.)
# neutronium (n.)
# Niven ring (n.)
# O’Neill cylinder (n.)
# TANSTAAFL (n.)
# Tellurian (n.)
# terraform (v.)

Click through for more, including links to definitions.

"I love watching people’s faces in conversation when they use a word I don’t know and I stop them and say, “Sorry, what exactly does that mean?” It’s like I’ve crossed a social boundary of some sort. Aren’t we all supposed to pretend we all know what we’re all talking about?"

With the tsunami that is the Harry Potter book craze subsiding, I thought it was time to take a look at one of the critiques of the J.K. Rowling series.

I would like to share with parents, educators, and homeschoolers a list of 101 stellar vocabulary words drawn directly from the pages of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.