commercials. I know someone who turns off his hearing aid when he is with boring people and becomes oblivious. Obliviousness can be a good thing at times. Not always.
OBSEQUIOUS means overly eager to please. The kid who is always raising his hand in class and saying, "I know! I know!" is usually pretty obsequious and it's no wonder nobody can stand him. Smarmy is kind of a neat word that means obsequious.
OBSTRUCTION is something—or someone—that causes a blockage or a hindrance. Once, years ago, I had to call a plumber because there was an obstruction in my bathtub drain, and it turned out that my two-year-old had stuffed his toy snake down the pipe. Unrelated to plumbing, "obstruction of justice" is actually a crime, if you do it on purpose, and a lot of people seem to.
ODIOUS, surprisingly, has nothing to do with smell. It just means something hateful or disgusting. Of course, something that smells bad and is also disgusting—like a drunk guy barfing on the sidewalk—would be odious and odoriferous at the same time. But an adorable baby skunk would be odoriferous without being odious, and a person making racist remarks while wearing expensive aftershave would be odious without being odoriferous.
PATHETIC means so inadequate as to be laughable. Beethoven wrote a sonata for the piano called "Pathetique"—which means "pathetic" in French—but it is not at all inadequate. Go figure.
REGRETTABLE means unfortunate, or causing feelings of shame or embarrassment. We have all done regrettable things in our lives. It is best to forget about them.
REPREHENSIBLE means highly unacceptable. Really, really highly.
SURREPTITIOUS means operating in a sneaky, stealthy way. Spies are always surreptitious. So are children who peek at their Christmas presents before Christmas.
TYCOON means somebody who has amassed great wealth and power in business. Usually a tycoon is a man, for some reason. Maybe Oprah Winfrey is a tycooness.
UNKEMPT means untidy and messy. My dictionary says it can also mean disorderly, but I know that a person can be arrested for being "drunk and disorderly" and I don't think someone can be arrested for being unkempt. Also, I don't think there is a word kempt —so what is that "un" all about? Beats me.
VILLAINOUS means typical of an evil person. Very obnoxious. You could have guessed that, of course, since you already know the word villain . In old movies, villains almost always had mustaches. I don't know why.
WINSOME means charming and innocent. The victims of villains are usually winsome and often have curls and long eyelashes.
Bibliography
(Books of the past that are heavy on piteous but appealing orphans, ill-tempered and stingy relatives, magnanimous benefactors, and transformations wrought by winsome children)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain, published 1884.
Orphan Huckleberry Finn builds a raft with his friend Jim and they sail down the Mississippi River hoping to get away from civilization. They never do. Undaunted, Huck vows to try again.
Anne of Green Gables
by Lucy Maude Montgomery, published 1908.
Eleven-year-old orphan Anne Shirley arrives at the Prince Edward Island farm of Marilla Cuthbert, who thought she was getting a boy to help with the chores and is dismayed at the arrival of the redheaded, talkative girl. Life at Green Gables is filled with ups and downs as Anne makes her way in the world and transforms everyone she meets. Like most literary orphans, she is wise, worthy, and self-possessed.
The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May
by Laura Lee Hope, published 1924.
The Bobbsey family has two sets of twins who have many adventures and sometimes solve mysteries. In this book they find an abandoned baby on their doorstep. (The baby's nurse, it turns out, had been hit on the head with a can of soup and had forgotten where she left the baby.) The Bobbsey parents are considerably more welcoming than Mrs. Willoughby.
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, published
OBSEQUIOUS means overly eager to please. The kid who is always raising his hand in class and saying, "I know! I know!" is usually pretty obsequious and it's no wonder nobody can stand him. Smarmy is kind of a neat word that means obsequious.
OBSTRUCTION is something—or someone—that causes a blockage or a hindrance. Once, years ago, I had to call a plumber because there was an obstruction in my bathtub drain, and it turned out that my two-year-old had stuffed his toy snake down the pipe. Unrelated to plumbing, "obstruction of justice" is actually a crime, if you do it on purpose, and a lot of people seem to.
ODIOUS, surprisingly, has nothing to do with smell. It just means something hateful or disgusting. Of course, something that smells bad and is also disgusting—like a drunk guy barfing on the sidewalk—would be odious and odoriferous at the same time. But an adorable baby skunk would be odoriferous without being odious, and a person making racist remarks while wearing expensive aftershave would be odious without being odoriferous.
PATHETIC means so inadequate as to be laughable. Beethoven wrote a sonata for the piano called "Pathetique"—which means "pathetic" in French—but it is not at all inadequate. Go figure.
REGRETTABLE means unfortunate, or causing feelings of shame or embarrassment. We have all done regrettable things in our lives. It is best to forget about them.
REPREHENSIBLE means highly unacceptable. Really, really highly.
SURREPTITIOUS means operating in a sneaky, stealthy way. Spies are always surreptitious. So are children who peek at their Christmas presents before Christmas.
TYCOON means somebody who has amassed great wealth and power in business. Usually a tycoon is a man, for some reason. Maybe Oprah Winfrey is a tycooness.
UNKEMPT means untidy and messy. My dictionary says it can also mean disorderly, but I know that a person can be arrested for being "drunk and disorderly" and I don't think someone can be arrested for being unkempt. Also, I don't think there is a word kempt —so what is that "un" all about? Beats me.
VILLAINOUS means typical of an evil person. Very obnoxious. You could have guessed that, of course, since you already know the word villain . In old movies, villains almost always had mustaches. I don't know why.
WINSOME means charming and innocent. The victims of villains are usually winsome and often have curls and long eyelashes.
Bibliography
(Books of the past that are heavy on piteous but appealing orphans, ill-tempered and stingy relatives, magnanimous benefactors, and transformations wrought by winsome children)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain, published 1884.
Orphan Huckleberry Finn builds a raft with his friend Jim and they sail down the Mississippi River hoping to get away from civilization. They never do. Undaunted, Huck vows to try again.
Anne of Green Gables
by Lucy Maude Montgomery, published 1908.
Eleven-year-old orphan Anne Shirley arrives at the Prince Edward Island farm of Marilla Cuthbert, who thought she was getting a boy to help with the chores and is dismayed at the arrival of the redheaded, talkative girl. Life at Green Gables is filled with ups and downs as Anne makes her way in the world and transforms everyone she meets. Like most literary orphans, she is wise, worthy, and self-possessed.
The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May
by Laura Lee Hope, published 1924.
The Bobbsey family has two sets of twins who have many adventures and sometimes solve mysteries. In this book they find an abandoned baby on their doorstep. (The baby's nurse, it turns out, had been hit on the head with a can of soup and had forgotten where she left the baby.) The Bobbsey parents are considerably more welcoming than Mrs. Willoughby.
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, published
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