My Vocabulary Words for 2008

When I was in my primary years of schooling, I got a very helpful advice from my eldest brother.  He told me, “To improve your vocabulary, you need to memorize at least one new word a day, know of course its meaning, and be able to use it in a sentence.  For,” he added, ” mathematically it would mean 360 new words per year.”  It proved to be indeed a great suggestion especially for me for whom English is already my third tongue.

And, so, from then on, I developed an ardor for words.  I’ve been fascinated by wordsmiths, and my attention is drawn by word formulation or letter-formation in a word.  Obviously, this is not ordinarily done and fails to be a conventional preoccupation so to speak.

In this posting, I am to offer a list of vocabulary words that have caught my attention and fancy during this 2008.

First on my list is the word “CHANGE”.  This was a powerful word, being a campaign slogan – well, it’s yet to be operationalized by Barack Obama – of the first Afro-American US president.

Another terminology is “SUB-PRIME”.  Definitely, it refers to loan or lending.  It is non-prime, near prime, second lending or under-banked.  It is used by the media to refer to the financial crunch that triggered the financial problem that has visited the world.  To me, it is synonymous to capitalistic greed, insofar as it is tantamount to predatory lending.

“BAIL OUT” is government rescue (to businesses suffering) from financial distress – at least, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.  It is for me associated with Paulson Plan, which was “bailed out” by the US legislators after their re-election was assured by roughly 20% of the original proposed amount to shore up the US economy (see Moron Savant’s Modern Version of Robin Hood).  Which bailed out what?  No, the question should be: who bailed whom?  Which leads me to understand more fully why the plea for rescue (or bail out) from the Big Three in Detroit was turned down by the US Senate.  Unfortunate for Ford, Chrysler and GM – election time was over.

“LIP SYNCING” is reminding me of the China Olympics.  Lexically, it is the pretension to sing or say in synchronization with recorded sound.  But to me, it is about the Chinese government pretension.  The story goes that the original voice belongs to a Chinese lass whose voice is simply superb yet whose beauty is not …– well, she’s less beautiful than the Chinese girl who was seen by the world doing the singing.  This is essentially similar to what governments in the Third World do when there are visiting dignitaries from the First World.  Along the way where the dignitaries would travel, the squatters will be hidden by erecting a makeshift iron sheet fences.  In this way, the “eye sore” will not be seen.