Vocabulary Builder

I know it’s been a while, but things are still complicated at this end, so we’ll all just have to be patient and kind and thoughtful. This post is a variation of a game I once played, where a series of obscure words were chosen from a dictionary, and then each person had to write a story using all the words – the aim being to build vocabulary. I did something similar here. It’s not very good – neither the words, nor the story. Inflict it on yourself at your own peril.

Verbose Verity stepped out into the morning light, and breathed in deeply. “Ah, to have the delicate scent of petrichor filling my being this aestival morn!” she exclaimed brightly, swishing her shoes through grass which was indeed wet from rain the night before. The lissotrichous woman skipped down the hillside, her face possessing a certain nacreous gleam of health and vitality. And it was in this frame of mind that she decided to go for a gallop. Fetching her noble palfrey named Ester, she rode over hill and dale.

After a time of joyous riding through the crisp clear morning, she came to a fork in the road. A stall was set up at the crossway, where a somewhat gadoid young man was selling what appeared to be bottled drinks.

“Pilsiner, malaga, lemonade too,” he called as she approached. “Can I interest you in a refreshing beverage?” he offered enthusiastically. She stopped and considered, as a pardalote sang out from a nearby tree, and she savoured the euphony of its call.

“Yes,” she decided decisively, and hopped down from Ester.

“That’s one magnificent palfrey you have there,” said the boy, nodding at Ester.

“Yes,” agreed Verity. “She is a nice palfrey.” She stroked her palfrey affectionately.

“My name’s Pieter, by the way,” said the boy, whose name was Pieter.

“Mine’s Verity,” volunteered Verity. “I’m the precentor of the local district. But I don’t think I’ve seen you before...hopefully not off committing hedonistic malfeasances abroad. Or I’d have to kill you, haha!” joked Verity – but only partly joking, as she suffered from acute theomania. “Like Alice – we had to kill her...as indeed all demireps must be eliminated, or those who think it clever to launch iconoclastic attacks on our church...preferably through violent and bloody means,” she added atavistically with a sly wink.

“Oh yes,” nodded the young man, “certainly ma’am.”

“Dear me, it’s nice to find someone who appreciates my esoteric, and dare I say it, often lapidary facetiae,” she continued, perusing the bottles of drink at the stall. “I think I’ll just have some lemonade, dear.”

But when she looked up, Pieter was running away.

“Excuse me?” she called after him loudly. Pieter didn’t respond, except to quicken his pace. Unfortunately, Pieter had been a life long sufferer of hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. He had tried many things to rid himself of the phobia, even isolating himself from the world through long pelagic voyages, but it always came back to haunt him.

Unfortunately for him, Verity did not take kindly at all to being snubbed in this manner. She swiftly mounted Ester, and raced off after him, pulling out an umbrella which had a hidden exsertile blade in the end. A gasp of malevolent laughter flew through the wind after her as she gained on him.

“Expugnable, weak child!” she spat as she levelled with him. He flinched at the maladroit usage of expugnable. “You cannot defeat me, for I AM GOD, that which is sempiternal, and now I summon the sepulchral voices from beyond!” She raised her voice dramatically here, as though hoping her invocation would bring about some kind of dramatic change. Pieter started backing away from her slowly, then ran for his life, pissed off that his internet still wasn’t working and it was so difficult to update his blog, which meant he never felt like writing anything.