This week, I’m featuring a word from the YA novel Otherborn by Anna Silver. Anna will be here on Friday explaining how Otherborn is different from other dystopians. (When I readOtherborn, I was happy not to find a choosing ceremony of some kind.) Come back to see what she has to say and enter her giveaway!
Here’s a little about Anna’s book:
Confined within Capital City’s concrete walls, London keeps an impossible secret: she dreams. And she’s not alone. Her friends are seeing themselves in “night pictures” too, as beings from another world. Together they uncover the story of their avatars, astral shamans they call Otherborn.
Now, on to the Word Nerd Word.
In this passage, London, the protagonist of Otherborn, describes the home of one of her friends.
The upper stories of Zen’s bank had the glass blown out from a storm years ago, rendering one third of the complex unlivable. It gave her the distinct feeling of squatting under a ghost town when she was there. A sensation she found untenable.
untenable \un-‘ten-ə-bəl\ adj, from Latin and Old French tenir to hold; not able to be defended or occupied (untenable apartments)
Word Nerd Workout
Use untenable in your own sentence. My example:
The soldiers shuffled around with dread and waited for the enemy to attack the untenable position.
I couldn’t let the year pass without sharing a word nerdy recap of 2013. Which words were most popular? Which ones could we forget?
My favorite new word is swivet, but more on that later.
Let’s start with popular words
On its site, Merriam Webster has a feature called The Year in Words. It highlights words that received a spike in “lookups” during 2013. This is a word lover’s way to review the big news stories of the past year. Some interesting examples:
Pyrrhic achieved popularity both in January and October relating to expensive and controversial political battles over the debt ceiling, the budget, and Obamacare. Pyrrhic means achieved at excessive cost, for example, a pyrrhic victory.
Contrite, or showing regret for bad behavior, spiked in January after Lance Armstrong’s confession. It also got a lot of attention after President Obama’s press conference in which he apologized for the bungled roll out of the new health care law.
Emeritus spiked when Pope Benedict stepped down from leading the Catholic Church. Emeritus means one retired from professional life but allowed to retain an honorary title.
knaidel
Lots of people looked up knaidel after a 13-year-old spelled it correctly to win the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee. It’s a German-Yiddish word for a dumpling. I’m pretty sure my 13-year-old can NOT spell that one. I’ll ask…
Pariah got popular after George Zimmerman received the not guilty verdict. His lawyer called him a pariah and said he’d probably leave Florida. A pariah is someone despised or rejected.
I know most of these, don’t you? The editors at M-W happily point out that people still need the dictionary for spelling and pronunciation information.
I’ve got a full-fledged adolescent now, as well as a “tween”. So, I’m tired of hearing the phrase “epic fail” – it’s so negative. Also, I’d be happy if I never heard another Minecraft related word, especially creeper, nether, or zombie. (But no luck there; we just got Minecraft on the laptop. We don’t have Xbox One, but hey, we’re still pretty cool.)
Welcome to Wondrous Words Wednesday, a great way to meet other word nerds and learn new vocabulary. Visit Kathy at Bermudaonion.netfor more interesting words.
Even on Christmas Day, a word nerd can learn something new. My oldest son got “Nanoblocks” in his stocking. Imagine Legos, but super tiny. There’s a whole series of architectural wonders recreated with these microblock models. My son got Kinderdijk Windmill and Big Ben. (Very fitting, since his grandfather is from the Netherlands and his aunt is from England. Way to go, Santa!)
The village of Kinderdijk, Netherlands, sits in a polder. Nineteen windmills drain the polder.
During construction of the micro windmill, my son and my father started talking about “polders”. I paused and looked up.
“Polders?”
“World G,” my son replied. (translation: World Geography)
polder \pōl-dər\ noun; Dutch; a tract of low land (as in the Netherlands) reclaimed from a body of water (as the sea).
Word Nerd Workout
Geography has lots of interesting words: archipelago, peninsula, delta. Can you share an interesting word from geography? Let’s generate a big list and call ourselves geography wizards!
Welcome to 2014, another great year for reading. Once my Christmas decorations are properly stored, I hope to have more time to snuggle up with books! You too? May I suggest some good places to find great reads?
Suggestions from my readers
Visit the list of Favorite Books from 2014 suggested by my word nerd readers. It’s a wonderful, eclectic assortment of titles including historical fiction, YA, and non-fiction. Note: not all books listed were published in 2013.
Goodreads Choice Awards
Check out the Goodreads Choice Awards for 2013. Every year, Goodreads asks readers to nominate their favorite books. These awards are the only major honors chosen by readers, not “experts” in literature. Over one million readers voted this year for books in 20 standard genres, including fiction, YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy, YA fiction, Picture Books, Middle Grade Books, and Debut Authors. (Yay for the support of emerging authors!)
Goodreads lists the winner for each category as well as several nominees. Many titles didn’t surprise me: And the Mountains Echoed, Dr. Sleep, The House of Hades. But I was shocked to see that J.R.R. Tolkien won the Poetry category with The Fall of Arthur, edited by his son Christopher Tolkien. I’ve never heard of this work, but I LOVE Arthurian legends and Tolkien! What an awesome combination. (I know; total nerd.)
The Picture Book winner was The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt. The premise: Duncan just wants to color, but all of his crayons are too busy bickering. What’s a kid to do? Doesn’t that sound fun? The covers for all the Picture Books listed look tempting. I’m happy to report that my favorite picture book author Mo Willems got a nomination for That is NOT a Good Idea. (Talk about a clever ending- you’ve GOT to read it. Even if you don’t have kids.)
If you go to the site and check out thelist, you can easily add books to your shelves using the “want to read” button under each title. Wait, you don’t use Goodreads yet? See my Goodreads guide for Word Nerds to enhance your reading experience!
NPR’s Best Books of 2013
NPR took a unique approach to its best books list this year. If you visit the “Book Concierge” at the NPR site, you’ll find over 200 titles chosen by NPR staff and critics. But the books are not organized in genres, but rather unusual descriptive categories, such as “Eye Opening Reads,” “Family Matters,” “Rather Long,” “It’s All Geek to Me,” and “The Dark Side.”
I think categories like that might actually do a better job of steering me to a good read than the typical, yet vague, genres of “historical fiction” and “science fiction.”
E & P won the YA category on both the Goodreads list and the NPR list
A few of the favorites from the Goodreads list appear here, including the YA novel Eleanor and Park and literary fiction piece The House Girl. But there are also some very interesting books I’ve never heard of, perhaps because the winners aren’t based on commercial success.
Have fun checking out all of those books!
What websites or resources do you use to find books to read? How helpful do you think lists like this can be?
Welcome to Wondrous Words Wednesday! Visit Kathy at Bermudaonion.net for more interesting words.
