Welcome to Wondrous Words Wednesday, hosted by Kathy at bermudaonion.net. It’s a great chance to expand on your (already awesome, I’m sure) vocabulary.
My favorite word from last week: mysophobia- a dread of dirt, filth, or unpleasant subjects, shared by Kelly at The Well Read Red Head. My eleven year old daughter suffers from mysophobia- especially at the dinner table.
This week I’m sharing still more vocabulary from an awesome book that you must read: The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green. I first read it last spring, and at that time highlighted inexorable and sobriquet in a vocab post. But John Green packs so many awesome words into his book, I had to mention another one.
“Well,” Peter Van Houten said, extending his hand to me. “It is at any rate a pleasure to meet such ontologically improbable creatures.”
Hazel, the protagonist, goes on to wonder, among other things, what ontologically means. So did I.
Ontology \än-tāl-ə-jē\ noun, from the Latin ontologia; a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being
So, Peter is apparently impressed that Hazel and her friend Augustus, both cancer patients, have being- that they are alive. Ontologically a perfect word for this book, as the main characters have a lot of metaphysical discussions about existence.
Word Nerd Workout
Good grief, I’m not going to ask you to put this word in a sentence. Or try to figure out a synonym. How about you share your favorite method for finding words you don’t know. Now that I have my Merriam-Webster app, I use that a lot. Or the good, old-fashioned hard copy of Webster’s.
What do you use? Thanks for stopping by.
And go read The Fault in Our Stars!
Julia
I love the book I cryed it was lovely
Thanks for the word workout! 🙂
Webster Dictionary bookmarked on computer and used A LOT! There are so many great words out there. I also get that daily word delivered to my in-box which I promptly forget, but today’s was…percept-(something)…eek, it was a word derived from perception and see? I can’t remember what it was! Terrible. Keep the vocab coming 🙂
I get the word a day as well! Something will sink in, I figure. I love it when I get one I know!
I’ve seen ontologically before, but it’s not a word I understand particularly, and so I can’t remember it. I would love to read The Fault in our Stars, everyone seems to love it.
Ontology is a word I’ve seen in graduate school (but I always had to look it up!) I still like the print dictionary that my parents gave me when I went to college. I also love the on-line Oxford English Dictionary — I get access to it with my library card. It’s great when I want to know the history of a word.
Our brains must be cloned at the hip. How’s that for an ontological metaphor? Okay – maybe not, but ANYHOO:
* I have just finished reading The Fault in Our Stars. “ontologically” was the only word I looked up while reading it.
* My hard-copy Webster’s is the most used book on my desk.
* I’ve just started using Merriam-Webster.com (don’t have a mobile, so don’t use the app). Still, my first response is to grab for my tree-book version of ol’ Mr. Webster’s work.
* 😉
I’m so glad to find another person that liked ( loved) The Fault in Our Stars. My f2f book club, mostly did not like it. For the life of me, I don’t get why??? Oh, well.
I used to scribble words as I read (print books) to look up later. Now I have started a Wondrous Words journal. Just a notebook, really. Hoping that will help me take the time to look them up. On my kindle, I love the fact that you can look it up “on the go”. Instant gratification!!
I don’t understand why either, Judy. Fortunate, I recommended it to my book club and everyone loved it as much as I did.
I like the idea of a “wondrous words journal”. I guess mine will have to be on this blog ( the “Word Nerdy Words” page. )
Julia,
Interestingly, I used a form of this word this past week. I was reviewing the cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments for the existence of God. Good stuff!
Bless your week,
Hester, 😉
Cool! You were ahead of me!
Ooh, I’m going to have to check out that app! I use my word-a-day calendar to discover new words.
Hi Julia,
I tend to use an on-line search, which is usually ‘The Merriam-Webster’, or ‘The Free Dictionary’ sites.
Of course ‘Wikipedia’ can be an endless source of research material.
Your word this week was a difficult one to get my head around, even after you had offered up a definition, but I did manage to find the word used in a sentence, which made it easy for even my poor little brain to understand …
“A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’ It can be answered, moveover, in a word—’Everything.”
Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908), U.S. philosopher.
Thanks for sharing a great word this week,
Yvonne
Wow Yvonne. Thanks for adding this great information! I hope this helps everyone.
I use the Merriam-Webster web site all the time. I’ll have to see if the app works on my Android.
Just saw Emily’s comment. I just requested the hard copy of ‘The Fault in Our Stars.’ Our regional library system doesn’t have the Kindle version yet, and I’m too cheap to buy it from Amazon.
I am number 8 on the library’s wait list for this book, can’t wait to read it!
As for your question: I’m lazy- I rarely look up a word. I tend to just use context clues to get a general sense of the meaning and continue on my merry reading way.
Yes, I understand- but sometimes context clues don’t work for me. That’s when the Kindle comes in handy- it’s pretty fast.
So glad you’re in line for #TFIOS!