Creative Vocab

Soliloquy

soliloquy (n.): a long speech made by a character in a drama to the audience to reveal his/her inner thoughts

Cory Matthews: You know Mr. Feeny, maybe I wouldn’t have bailed on this play if you’d picked something a little cooler. I mean couldn’t we do ‘Selected Scenes From the Terminator?’ Or how about ‘A Steven Seagal Soliloquy?’ 
George Feeny: You know Mr. Matthews, you’re right. Shakespeare is dry, tedious, and there’s no way for a person your age to be affected by it. [Cory turns to go when Feeny suddenly hits himself with a blue spotlight and picks up a spear] 
George Feeny: [reciting] “Behold- I am thy Father’s spirit, doomed for a certain time to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires, until the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burned and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood! But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood. List. List! Oh, list. If thou didst ever thy dear father love…” 
Cory Matthews: Oh, God… 
George Feeny: “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.” 
Cory Matthews: Murder? 
George Feeny: Of course, I’m no Steven Seagall.

- Boy Meets World, Episode 1.20 (The Play’s The Thing)

Sounds like: soul Lily Queen

My favorite character in the play, Queen Lily, bared her soul to the audience in multiple soliloquies throughout.

Incipient

incipient (adj.):  beginning to develop or exist. Eg. incipient racial tensions, love, planet.

Sheila Rosenberg: Sit down, honey. 
Willow: Principal Snyder talked to you. 
Sheila Rosenberg: Yes. He’s quite concerned. 
Willow: Mom, I know what this looks like, and I can totally… 
Sheila Rosenberg: Oh, you don’t have to explain, honey. This isn’t exactly a surprise. 
Willow: Why not? 
Sheila Rosenberg: Oh, well, identification with mythical icons is perfectly typical of your age group. It’s a-a classic adolescent response to the pressures of incipient adulthood. 
Willow: Oh. Is that what it is? 
Sheila Rosenberg: Of course, I wish you could have identified with something a little less icky, but developmentally speaking… 
Willow: Mom, I’m not an age group. I’m me. Willow group.

- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Episode 3.11 (Gingerbread)

Sounds like: in sipping aunt

“An incipient human being is in your aunt’s uterus, sipping nutrients through his umbilical cord as we speak,” was how my mother broke the news of my aunt’s pregnancy to me.

Derision

derision (n.) [rhymes with decision]: ridicule

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don’t even start.

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs, and maybe your own mind.
It could mean not eating for three or four days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail.
It could mean derision.
It could mean mockery. Isolation.

Isolation is the gift. All the others are tests of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you’ll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it’ll be better than anything else you can imagine.

If you’re going to try, go all the way.

There’s no other feeling like that; you will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire. You’ll ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.” 
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum

Sounds like: dare John

John was dared to stop in the middle of practice and screech, “I miss my mommy!” in a high-pitched voice three times. He did it and became the football team’s object of derision for the next few months.

Anonymous asked: Hi! Just want to thank you so much for handling the site and making up clever mnemonics. They really help a lot! :D

Thank you, you lovely person!

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Descry

descry (v.): to catch sight of something

“We had just ascended the highest point of a ridge to get a prospect of the country beyond, when we descried a herd of buffalo in motion and two or three horsemen in hot pursuit. “Mexican Ciboleros!”[Mexican Buffalo Hunters!] we all exclaimed at once; for we supposed we might now be within the range of the buffalo hunters of New Mexico.”

- Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies: or, The journal of a Santa Fé trader, 1831–1839

Sounds like: decribe

You have to descry things before you can describe them.

Clandestine

clandestine (adj.) [clan-dess-teen]: secret 

“He did not understand all he had heard, but from his clandestine glimpse into the privacy of these two, with all the world that his short experience could conceive of at their feet, he had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited and Other Stories

Sounds/looks like: clan/plan this time

“Clan, we shall plan this time to be clandestine in our attack. We shall sneak up on them while they are asleep,” said the clan’s leader in his pep talk the morning of the final battle in their war with the neighboring clan.

Pernicious

pernicious (adj.): harmful

“I’m vile and perverted. 
I’m obsessed and deranged.
I’ve existed for years but very little has changed.
I’m the tool of the government and industry too.
For I’m destined to rule and regulate you.
You may think I’m pernicious, but you can’t look away.
I’ll make you think I’m delicious with the stuff that I say.
I’m the best you can get… have you guessed me yet?
I’m the slime oozing out of your TV set….” 
― Frank Zappa

Sounds like: punish us

She decided to punish us for crashing her party by spreading pernicious rumors about us.

Impetuous

impetuous (adj.): impulsive

“IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER:

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the “good” living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather rambling about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculped like a rose before it melted 
in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more 
while watching life.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn’t show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment, realising that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.”

There would have been more “I love you’s” and more “I’m sorry’s”

… but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute … 

look at it and really see it … and never give it back.” ― Erma Bombeck

Sounds like: him pet to us

“Is that your brother dancing on that picnic table?”

“Him? Yeah, sometimes he’s like a pet to us, so impetuous and unpredictable.”

Disparage

disparage (v.): to belittle something, to denigrate it

“Love and Marriage
It’s an institute you can’t disparage
Ask the local gentry
And they will say it’s elementary”

- Love and Marriage, Frank Sinatra 

The theme song for Married With Children, which made Ed O’Neil famous before he was Jay Pritchett on Modern Family:

Sounds like: this porridge

I cooked breakfast for my roommates and the one we all hate disparaged my cooking skills by saying, “this porridge is nothing special. All you did was boil oats in milk; anyone can do that.” 

Extraneous

extraneous (adj.): 

1. unnecessary
2. external

1. Hermione Granger: Actually I’m highly logical which allows me to look past extraneous detail and perceive clearly that which others overlook.
   - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
2. “Of course , if I am nothing but an ego, and woman is nothing but another ego, then there is really no vital difference between us. Two little dolls of conscious entities, squeaking when you squeeze them. And with a tiny bit of an extraneous appendage to mark which is which…” 
   ― D.H. Lawrence