One morning in 2005, I arrived to my high school World History class earlier than usual and found my teacher busy scrawling onto a cardboard coffee cup.
“Have you ever done this before?” he asked, holding up the cup after he’d finished writing a particularly long item. “Made a list of your favorite words?”
“No,” I replied, intrigued.
He explained, “I read an article earlier today about it. There are a lot of really great words out there. You should make a list.”
So, in honor of my dear departed teacher, Senior Project mentor, and the man who once startled me in the waiting room at the dentist as I was shaking my cell phone so he could point out with a grin, “You know, it won’t work any better if you do that,” here is my own list of my ten favorite words, which I have edited every few months for the past ten years:
- acatalepsy
- conglomerate
- frigate
- nomenclature
- penchant
- proxy
- verklempt
- vestibule
- obnoxious
- desultory
I’ll miss you, Fichman. Thank you for everything you did.
