What we do with a Sunday afternoon and a dictionary

So Bennett and I were sitting around this afternoon, me studying a dictionary and Bennett contemplating suicide (or as I like to call it, watching the Yankees lose). I asked if he would like to write some stories instead. We gave each other 5 words from the dictionary. Each of the words had to be used in the opening paragraph of a possible short story. Read on for amusement.

A Teacher Gets Fired

By Bennett Johnson

Vocabulary Words

Recondite: not easily understood, obtuse

Psychograph: graph or chart of personality traits

Melisma: an ornamental phrase of music sung to one word over several notes (such as the "Gloria" in Angels we have Heard on High). (Bennett's definition: crappy singing.)

Interloper: meddler, interfere for selfish reasons

Horologe: devise such as a clock used for telling time

The student was definitely recondite. He had been disturbing class for weeks in the oddest ways. "Seriously," thought the teacher, "who can keep a melisma going under their breath for 45 minutes? If I were to make a psychograph of his behavior it would be a painting you could hang in Satan's den in Hell. But today that will all change, for today, I become the destructive interloper." The teacher laughed to himself as he glanced at the horologe, "Only a few minutes left."

Twenty-One days on a Horse Named Fiddles

By Katie Johnson

Vocabulary Words
Jennet: small Spanish saddle horse
Operose: Involving great labor

Ophidia: of, relating to or resembling snakes

Thrombus: a clot in the chamber of the heart

Excresence: an abnormal outgrowth or enlargement, such as a wart

On the fifth day of riding the jennet accross the Mengabi Desert, the horse spoke to Ferdinand with her many headed, ophidia like tongue. On the seventh day, he perceived his newly acquired thrombus had developed feelings and was pouting due to unfair treatment from the other organs. On the fifteenth day he operosely gave birth to a hairy excresence. He named it Suzy.

Captain Jasper Fagnally and the Stupendous Swamp Gang

By Bennett Johnson

Vocabulary Words:
Bilk: to defraud or swindle, one who cheats, to evade payment
Calotte: a skullcap, especially worn by the Roman Catholic priest
Calypso: a sea nymph who delayed Odysseus for 7 years
Coadunate: closely joined, grown together, united
Levorotation: counterclockwise rotation especially of a plan of polarized light


Jasper had grown fond of Calypso, you could even say their relationship had coadunated nicely. They had been bilking their way across the bayou for weeks now, taking suckers for every last penny and laughing about it over crawfish and absinthe under a bright Cajun moon. Many people said it wasn't natural for a man to grow so close to a sea nymph, especially one that wore a calotte, which resulted in their being chased from Shreveport for sacrilege. But as Jasper lay tied to an old ship's helm, spinning with a slow levorotation under the hot sun, ready to die, knowing their luck had run out, he was glad to call Calypso a friend.

I Got All My Vocab Words in One Sentence

By Katie Johnson

Vocabulary Words
Itasca: a lake in NW Minn., source of the Mississippi River
Misanthrope: one who hates or mistrusts human kind
Campanology: the art and study of making and ringing bells
Anasarca: A general accumulation of serious fluid in tissue and body cavities
Querulous: complaining, grumbling, peevish


The querulous misanthrope sat fishing on lake Itasca thinking of campanology while trying not to think of his anasarca. He slowly came to the conclusion that campanology and anasarca were not that different after all. And that made him feel slighly better.

(Bennett wanted me to title this: What's that Ringing? It's Anasarca!)