Smarty Pants

[Lilllabettt]

Sr. Mary Word Nerd.

The best.

Do you know, when I was a postulant I was informally named "Sr. Mary Absalom,"

You know, how Absalom got his hair caught in the boughs of an oak tree? Well I had Epic Postulant Hair, eg., thick, unruly and too short for a ponytail.

[Thomist-in-Training]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' post='1940754' date='Aug 4 2009, 11:02 PM']Sr. Mary Word Nerd.

The best.

Do you know, when I was a postulant I was informally named "Sr. Mary Absalom,"

You know, how Absalom got his hair caught in the boughs of an oak tree? Well I had Epic Postulant Hair, eg., thick, unruly and too short for a ponytail.[/quote]

Hahahahaha! Poor thing.

[stlmom]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' post='1940754' date='Aug 4 2009, 11:02 PM']Sr. Mary Word Nerd.

The best.[/quote]


Hmmm... I'm partial to the Latin myself......
Sister Maria Verbosa
Sister M. Verbum Sapienti
Sister M. Loquatious

[Luigi]

[quote name='stlmom' post='1941088' date='Aug 5 2009, 08:58 AM']Hmmm... I'm partial to the Latin myself......
Sister Maria Verbosa
Sister M. Verbum Sapienti
Sister M. Loquatious
[/quote]

This is hysterical! I thought about adding a sentence saying "You can Latinize any of these, too," but I thought it was too lame, and I had already written too much, and you did a better job of providing Latin examples than I would have anyway.

[Starets]

When I was growing up, I kept being told not to be smart, so in obedience to that I am really very stupid. Nevertheless, I love words. Back when I used to write poetry, I would sometimes scour dictionaries and thesauruses (Thesauri?) in search of the word that had just the right nuances I was looking for, even if it fell out of common usage 400 years ago. I would also drive some of my fellow students in senior undergrad and graduate courses in History. I would come up with the occasional one third page long latinate sentence, with an Ablative Absolute and a few dependant clauses, that was grammatically flawless. Even with the occasional sesquipedalian sentence, I still could write clearly. It is not hard; it just takes practice.

Ps to VA: Whilst there still is time, look up Samuel Johnson. He was one of the finest prose stylists in the English Language. He also had total recall, possessed an occasionally terrifying intelligence, and wrote the first dictionary of the English language that wasn’t little more than a word list. He wrote a short story called Rasselas, which has been called the wisest and saddest work in all literature, with the sole exception of Ecclesiastes. He wrote it in the evenings of one week in order to cover the costs of his mother’s funeral.

[HisChild]

I LOVE this thread! LOL! I can't stop laughing.

Seriously Lillabett, should you be a wordsmith, that is a talent, not to be hidden under a bushel basket. I hope to not sound uncharitable but perhaps that particular sister was intimidated by a 'mere' postulant who had a more profound vocab than her? I understand your unwillingness to humiliate another, but she very well could have been annoyed by your thick hair, or your height/weight. Who knows?

As for humiliation? I love Eleanor Roosevelt's quote: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

God bless you.