I think the general meaning there was wealthy or upper class, not referring to his build.

However, I recall my grandparents talking about a well-dressed acquaintance thus

"He's a proper swell."

Annpan, similar to you, I've always understood 'swell' to refer to a rather over-dressed, flashy swaggering type of man.

Yoyo I wonder if your eg of 'swole' comes from swollen?

Two more words that were new to me

cruciverbalist and poecilonyms

Should/could have got the first but not the second.

Vee.....I like the first word and have to admit to being an enthusiast cruciverbalist .

However, the second one will be forgotten and I'll stick with "synonym" .

I don't usually do crossword puzzles but enjoy picking up a half finished one in a waiting room to complete it. Even better if someone had got stuck by filling in a wrong word and I can feel smug altering it! Am I a five letter word beginning with W and ending in D?

WEIRD?

Correct!

Now, about my question...

I complete two crossword puzzles ( LA Times and USAToday), a cryptoquote and word jumble puzzles every morning as a waker-upper . Then I go on to do Wordle.

After those challenges I am ready to meet the day !!

Yoyobon, such energy!

I am not a good morning person. I stagger around to make a hot drink, take my meds, check overnight emails and then if I had had a wakeful night, I go back to bed.

Quoting a favourite author, the day often starts without me...

We have had a dry Summer and my D sent me an email to say it was raining in her area. She added that she loves the petrichor. I had to look that up.

The pleasant smell of a first rain following a dry spell, apparently.

This isn't exactly on topic for this thread but it seems as good a spot as any to VENT !!

Just read a response in a site about mathematical probabilities regarding solving Wordle and was flummoxed by a reader response.

In her reply she stated that she " doesn't math well".

*sigh*

Apparently she doesn't "english well" either.

I have the feeling "petrichor" was in a recent Reader's Digest as a little photo fun fact, but I could be wrong.

Kudos to Roget's Thesaurus

Mundane words certainly bore us.

Pick a new word each day,

I venture to say,

Our friends would simply abhor us !

Good one, Msmeow !!

While watching an Australian series , "Darby and Joan", I found many words and expressions that were foreign to me.

One word that particularly tickled me was their use of " stuffed".....which means to be fu**ked..

It might be confusing for an Australian in the USA , I imagine, when they hear that we stuff the turkey for Thanksgiving....and after that large meal we feel stuffed ! LOL.

I'm looking up words right and left reading Dorothy L. Sayers. She writes Latin phrases, French phrases, and something in a totally incomprehensible script, as well as using words I've never heard of. One such is bombinating which means a buzzing or humming sound.

Amusing, Yoyobon, but no…we know the difference 😂

Colleenoz........whew !

Here, in December, some years ago...

Australian plant nurseryman "This is a good Christmas Tree."

US visitor, "Yes, it is. I am looking forward to trimming it."

A/p/n, a bit affronted. "Why? What's wrong? It's a nice shape already!"

Me, hastily "She means that she is going to decorate it!"

Trimming a Christmas tree is now part of the language. At least in the shop displays!

And over here, while we might not trim a Christmas tree we serve Christmas dinner "with all the trimmings."

Over here we also "don our gay apparel " !

yoyo, at least they can't arrest you for it these days.

No, but they'll chastise you for not embracing the donning !

World gone crazy.

While doing the morning crossword I discovered the word ERG , which was also coincidentally used frequently in the book I am reading. I did not know that it was a rowing machine !

I thought you might enjoy these Southern expressions and get your smile on today !

https://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/g36804202/southern-sayings/

Bon, I thought erg was a unit of energy.

I have used many of those expressions! And heard many more. 😆

Msmeow.....erg is a unit of energy. It's also a slang word for a rowing machine.

Not sure it's Southern, but I also like the expression ...."Run it up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes. " ( throw the idea out there )

But my most favorite is " Don't stir a turd." ( don't make trouble )

RE: erg, I also thought its only definition was as a unit of energy (thanks to long-ago physics classes), but in looking it up, I discovered that nowadays it is indeed used as a short form of 'ergometer,' which is a rowing machine with an energy measurement device attached. Learn something new every day! :)

I have started using the dictionary function on my e-reader, and discovered yesterday that 'scree' which I vaguely guessed from context reading as a rough landscape actually has a specific meaning of a pebbly area, somewhat like a rockslide.

I usually forget words I've learned from reading, but occasionally make a note of them which helps my feeble memory. One book in particular that continually sent me to the dictionary was Nick Harkaway's Gnomon, so that I ended up listing all the words in my reading log:

· Brinjal = the fruit of the eggplant, used as a synonym for purple color

· Otiose – futile

· Haruspex = diviner who examines animal entrails for omens

· Etiolated = weak, drawn out, pale

· Vertiginous – dizzy, whirling

· Steganography = hiding a message within another message

· Ludic = aimless, wandering

· Espiocrats = members of an espionage bureaucracy

· Slantendicular = oblique

· Coulrophobic = fear of clowns

In a bio about the late playwright Andrea Dunbar ("Rita, Sue and Bob Too"), one of her daughters was described as having glue ear and needing grommets installed. I was flummoxed until i looked up this malady. and its treatment. The American equivalents to the words are otitis media (middle ear) syndrome and shunts (that keep the eustachian tubes open for fluids in the middle ear to

drain through them. The British expressions make it sound rather more exotic.!

Glue ear was one of those 'popular' medical conditions back in the late 70's - early 80's in the UK, rather like removal of tonsils had been 20 years before. Our youngest son, because he was quite deaf, was offered treatment but after being prepped for the op it was found his ear canals were too small so they removed his adenoids instead! He has since become increasingly deaf . . .

I clearly remember when I had my tonsils removed in the mid 1940s and my mother pushing me in my little sister's stroller pram into a railway station waiting room to the annoyance of the cleaning lady as she had just mopped the floor! When it was explained that I had come from the hospital and needed to be kept warm, she changed her attitude. The things that stick with us! I don't remember the actual operation!

My grandson was diagnosed with glue ear and was flown from the Cocos Islands to the Perth children's hospital for the operation, 3000km/1865 miles! As his father was working there, it was all free for him and his mother who stayed with us.

I don't know what the latest "must be done" medical condition is!

Annpan, if we are to believe the tabloid press the Big Medical Issues seem to revolve around gender-reassignment as was offered by the now closed-down Tavistock Clinic in London and a Hot Topic among the members of the Scottish Democratic Party who's leader Nicola Sturgeon has wisely stood-down after some misguided support for a couple of male (at the time) rapists who decided to 'trans' enabling them to be detained in Women's Prisons. And I always thought the Scots so sober, sensible and God-fearing . . .

My daughter had her tonsils out in 1959 at age four. My parents came and stayed over the weekend and brought her a toy nurse's kit. She ate the candy pills, played nurse through her "let's pretend" years, and became a nurse as her profession.

Never have I ever seen or heard this word ........yet it was used several times in the book Delphine Jones Takes A Chance .

" Once again, we filed into the hall and sat down as the invigilators handed out papers. "

In the US we call them proctors.

I would guess that 'invigilator' is someone imposing a vigil or a watch .

yoyo, invigilator is quite a common word over here, just means someone who 'oversees' an exam or similar.

When we had exams a teacher from a different class acted as the invigilator. If you needed to go out for a toilet break, you were accompanied by a prefect who waited outside the cubicle.

I heard though that some students cheated and wrote key words on their arms or legs!

Three more words I had to check:

eldritch . . . sinister/ghostly

exigent . . . demanding/pressing

verveine . . . describing the colour of Lee Radziwill's eyes . . . is 'verbena' so they must have been green

I find many words I think I know the meaning of - I don't!

Vee..... Why would authors use such obscure words when the reader will have no idea what they mean ? News reporters are taught to "write to their audience", speakers are told to " speak to their audience " in words that will easily and clearly convey their point.

yoyo, perhaps it is just because we 'mere mortals' didn't swallow a dictionary at birth Or is it perhaps so writers can show-off?

...or they just have a wider vocabulary? My DiL commented how I use words in the song lyrics I write for my son that she hasn't heard of! I love wordplay...

There are words that are simply not known by most....perhaps for good reason.

A wide vocabulary is one thing but using words that are not understood by the majority is just showboating ,,,,IMO .

Yoyobon, perhaps the writer thought the word they used was widely understood. Some of the examples given here were not known to some but were familiar to others.

How can one judge?

When I wrote a letter to a client for my Australian employer and used the word "urge" meaning to advise the client to consider a certain action, he mocked me and said it was making the client sound like he was in a horse race! For me, saying that "I urge you to do so-and-so was normal. I rephrased it.

I suspect writers tend to like new and unusual words - part of their trade, in effect, and like to use them when they can, just because they are fascinated by them. Stephen Donaldson explained it that way once, IIRC (I read his Thomas Covenant books with a dictionary by my side). Although I confess I was quite annoyed by one author's use of 'brinjal' instead of eggplant, aubergine, or just plain purple. But maybe brinjal is actually more common in the UK than in the States? (Like 'invigilators' which I'd never heard of - as Yoyobon said, I've always heard and used the word 'proctor.')

Being too lazy, or maybe I should say being too engrossed in a book, to look up words in the dictionary is one of the reasons I like reading on line. You can Google in a minute. Google even knows how to pronounce Scottish and Irish names.

I think this question is for Colleen or anyone familiar with NZ .........what does the word " Ta." mean?

I am watching the series 800 Words and it seems that this word is used frequently.

Yoyo, 'ta' is a childish way of saying thank you. On the other hand, ta-ta means goodbye.

I was astonished today when a FB friend said she had mentioned the trade of carpenter to a young person who said 'is that someone who lays carpets?'

My Grandmother and Mother had a list of words that were considered common and'ta' was forbidden in our house . . . as was toilet. Not unlike Nancy Mitford's description of U and non-U words, but without us being quite so far up the social scale!

Thanks Kath ! I thought it might be something like that.