A nubivagant post off in lala land, wandering among clouds… I’ve adopted a word and have to use it to keep it alive and protect its dictionary listing. Nubivagant (means: moving through and around the clouds) is one of the three I chose from a great site that I was pointed to by Robyn of The Egypt Experience.
The site is called Save the Words and is huge fun – click on any weird word and find out its meaning. With some of them you can quite understand why they are in danger of losing their place in the dictionary, but there are some great ones which will extend your vocabulary, besides giving you an erudite air if you ever find yourself in scholarly company.
My other two chosen words were quibbleism (the act of beating around the bush) and frutescent (having the habit or appearance of a shrub) lots of garden references there – it must have been on my mind last night.
Both of us spent almost an hour surfing and choosing words to adopt yesterday evening. My husband found five he couldn’t resist, so we now have a family of eight words that we have pledged to use whenever possible.
I got a certificate of adoption too. I have a feeling that several others have adopted these words , as I came across a few poems using nubivagant in conjuction with daffodils when I googled it.
Save the Words is as much fun for word-lovers as FreeRice, though you don’t get the kick of feeding the five thousand with your word prowess that you do with FreeRice. I spent several evenings there when I first discovered it and still go back and visit sometimes whenever I need a wordy diversion. But maybe Save the Words has a more short term appeal. After all there are only so many words you should adopt, in order to devote enough attention to each one, and of course remember its meaning.
Have a look and let me know if you adopt any words yourself – they could have a play date with mine – abstruse poetry anybody?!
lol! Glad you had so much fun with it. I intend going back every week to learn a new word... one at a time for me, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteOh fun. I'm going right now to adopt some words.
ReplyDeleteMe again, I have a little award for you over on my page, pop by to collect it if you will.
ReplyDeleteThanks and have a great day!
Oh what super fun...do you remember that program which had two teams who described a word...the problem is....I can't remember what it was called - so I'm just as bad!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, this web site is addictive...one keeps clicking on words. I haven't adopted any, yet :)
ReplyDeleteSearching for the meaning of nubivagant, a word I found at the exhibition of art of lost words, I found your post, and look, another fun link to explore - thanks! Ticklishly cute sort of idea, adopting lost words, must try it :)
ReplyDeleteYes! Yes! Abstruse poetry! Count me in! I'm sure there are enough of us blogging poetry saddos that we can make some sort of tag-team poem using endangered words? We jsut have to decided on a metre and a ryhme scheme...
ReplyDeleteGasp! I (and by I, I mean me, Megan Murray a person you don't at all know) just went to save the words yesterday and adopted nubivagant! So naturally, I Googled it and found you and (here's where another gasp comes in) you've adopted it too! They are letting multiple people adopt the same words!
ReplyDelete(As you can see by my excessive use of exclamation points I am shocked.)
So ummm... can we have joint custody? Since, you know, the whole point is the keep the word alive anyway? I think nubivagant would flourish a lot more with two guardians. They say it takes a village to raise a child and I'm guessing it takes at least a couple of us to keep this silly, and yet undeniably lovely, word alive.
I hope you don't mind sharing. :)
It was fun reading your blog by the way--you and your friends are fun. I hope you wrote your tag-team poem.
-Megan
Hi Megan,
ReplyDeleteI'm more than happy to share the huge responsibility of the future of this word that we have both adopted.
I have to admit that I don't devote nearly enough attention to its needs. I think the whole village approach is most definitely the key to a happy future of a dictionary bursting with healthy, lively and decorative words. Wishing you much enjoyment of nubivagant. I'll have to google it again to find your blog and check in on our nurseling!