Think Before Speaking: Spice Up Your Vocabulary

English is a bewildering language.  On the one hand, it’s got enough rules to make you dizzy, and once you get around those, there are at least half as many exceptions to the rules.  But on the other hand, the language is always growing and changing, picking up new words every day—from other languages, from technology or the internet, or just from people’s minds.  Over the past few months, I’ve been collecting a list of words I would like to add to my vocabulary, and I would like to share them with you.  If you have any you'd like to add to the list, I'd love to hear them!

Fussbudget and its companion, flutterbudget, both nouns.  I picked these up from friends.  They mean people who are uncommonly nervous or anxious, or, in the case of fussbudget, nosy.  Someday I will have a pair of dogs, dubbed the Budget twins, Fuss and Flutter.   

Hippopotamic, adj.  Used in the 1987 film The Princess Bride as one of Vizzini’s terms of endearment for Fezzic.  Meaning large, bulky, taking up too much space, with a connotation of lazy, slow, fat.  Because sometimes there just aren’t enough words to describe bigness.

Pookie, adj.  Used by my father.  Describes a feeling of listlessness, sadness, perhaps even mild illness.  General “got-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed” feeling.

Ah shidanza! int.  Used in the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog by the warty prince himself.  Simply an exclamation of excitement or amazement.  One of those that’s just really fun to say.

Scuzzy, adj.  Used by my roommate, Taylor Hodge.  Describes something grimy or otherwise suspiciously unhygienic.  I also picked up the word “sketchy/sketch” from her, which has a similar meaning.

Bangorang, int.  Used in the 1991 film Hook.  Because I’m a Lost Boy at heart.

Hoopla, noun.  Not sure where I heard this first—it’s used pretty frequently.  A good word to describe an exciting or messy situation.  And again, fun to say.

Coo coo k’choo, int.  Used in the 2003 film Finding Nemo, though I’m not entirely sure if that was its first usage.  In the film, it was used to express mild amazement at how quickly time passes.  “Ah, it’s awesome, Jellyman.”