Sunday, February 21, 2010

Most Worthless Vocabulary Contest

OK bloggers...it's time for you to weigh in! As I was re-copying my vocabulary collection (see previous post about the hungry little puppy), I realized that our tutor has accomplished an incredible feat. (Well, I suppose we've accomplished an incredible feat as well.) Since starting this new method last November, we have been exposed to, can comprehend, and use hundreds of new words. Consequently, our tutor has also taught us a handful of entirely bizarre words. Kev & I are curious to know which ones you think are the most worthless.

First, let me give a quick explanation of how we study these days. We have a collection of wordless picture books, from which we select a book for the week. Our tutor records himself telling the story he sees, inventing characters, creating their motivations, crafting internal conflicts and dialouges...it's all quite entertaining. After about ten minutes of recording, we stop and listen to his masterpiece. Whenever we come across a word or grammar structure that we don't understand, we pause the recording and "negotiate" the meaning of the word in our new language. It's kind of like a mixture of storybook hour at the local library, charades, and that party game Catch Phrase.

OK onto the contest...These are my choices of our most random words and the pictures from which they were derived by our tutor (who, I think you'll agree, has quite the imagination)


beer belly
bikini
Michael Phelps


punk
to smoke marijuna
rock & roll music


EEG (dear friends who have gone to medical school or like watching doctor shows on TV--is this a fancy word for brain scan?)
X-ray
hospital beds that go up & down
Manhattan
Empire State Building


Siciliy
to extort; to blackmail
to illegally cross an international border
Cupid (yes, as in Valentine's Day)


T-rex (which, if you look closely enough at this picture, you'll realize that dinosaur isn't a T-rex at all...)
prebyoptic glasses (I have no clue what this word means in Asian-ese, let alone in English!)
jurassic period


Tarzan
latin
eating disorder
unlawful entry; trespassing
wizard hat
dwarf


Converse All-stars
revealing, scantily clad
backless shirt
really tight pants
platform heels
senator (this country doesn't even have senators!?!?)

The possiblities are endless for the outlandish things we're able to say now...

What's your favorite worthless word? Any ridiculous sentences you'd like to create out of our word list?

(Disclaimer in defense of our wonderful tutor: we do actually learn helpful words too. Those just don't make a very good blog post)

4 comments:

Angela said...

thanks for a good laugh my love! scantily clad is up there on my list:)

The Foster Family said...

The Senator from the Jurassic Period was a dwarf whose name was Michael Phelps!

Matt and I are wondering about what a short term trip might look like for us. Maybe this summer? We had been thinking about something like that when you mentioned it in your email. Let me know your thoughts! : )

Susan/Mama said...

While I didn't go to medical school, I can tell you that an EEG is a brain electrical scan. It's done with little patches on your head. Much simpler than the CAT scan one can have done now.

I bet you find out that none of these words turn out to be useless. How could a word be useless?

Chris & Sarah Peek said...

I think the senator with the beer belly smoking marijuana while trespassing in his wizard's hat must be a nice guy.