Wondrous Words Wednesday 1/2/12 (and some random Paris photos, because it's been a while)

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a fabulous weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.  

Recently I read Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. There were lots of great new words for me, so much so that the rest of them will be next weeks post. 

1.Sinsemilla (Noun)

We inherited it from last year's Pitters who graduated, but still we get nervous walking in if other Pitters are already there: Tatum, who wears a different color Danskin every day, or Wayne, who grows sinsemilla in his actual closet, or Boomer, who's always hugging everyone since his family did EST.

A highly potent form of marijuana obtained from unpollinated female plants. The Free Dictionary. 

I didn't think there was anything else you would grow in your wardrobe, but I thought that I knew most of the terms for cannabis.

2. Cholos (Noun)

Down the path from the Pit is where the cholos hang out, with their black leather coats and clicky shoes and dark hair in almost invisible nets. 

In modern usage it most often applies to a low-income Mexican-American sub-culture and manner of dress. It was an ethnice slur created by Hispanic criollos in the 16th centruy, and it has been applied to individuals of mixed or pure American Indian ancestry, or other racially mixed origin.  Wiki.

3. Badinage (Noun)

And since the badinage I proceed to exchange with Kitty are simply not worth relating, I'll mention instead (in the footnote-ish fashion that injects a whiff of cracked leather bindings into pop-cultureal observation) that when you're a young movie star with blondish hair and a highly recognizable face from that recent movie whose grosses can only be explained by the conjecture that every person in America saw it at least twice, people treat you in a manner that is somewhat different-in fact is entirely different- from the way they treat, say, a balding, stoop-shouldered, slightely eczematous guy approaching middle age.

Light, playful banter. The Free Dictionary

I've enjoyed badinage all these years and never knew. 

A costume Regine Crespin wore for La Chevalier  a la Rose (March 1957)

4. Sophistry (Noun)

I've engaged in a bit of sophistry, here, suggesting that entangled particles can explain anything when, to date, they themselves have not been satisfactorily explained. 


i) Plausible but fallacious argumentation.
ii) The teachings and ways of teaching of the ancient Greek sophists. The Free Dictionary. 

5. Ontology

Have you ever managed to use the word 'ontology' in a conversational sentence?


No I haven't, because I haven't known the meaning before!


i) Philosophy. The branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. 
ii) Logic. The set of entities presupposed by a theory. 

Gorgeous lamps on sale at the shop in the Paris Opera

6. Debouchment (Noun)

Now, I've orchestrated our debouchment for several reasons: One, I want to filch a few extra minutes off Kitty in an attempt to salvage this assignment and, in a larger sense, my once-promising, now-dwindling literary reputation ('I think she was maybe disappointed that you didn't try writing another novel after the first one didn't sell...' Beatrice Green, over hot tea, after I threw myself sobbing upon her Scarsdale doorstep, pleading for insights into her daughter's defection).

The act or an instance of marching from a narrow, confined are into the open. The Free Dictionary.