Transcript Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty

S.A.T. Terms
Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty: Words About
Age
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Antediluvian (ant tea dill loo vee un): very old,
old-fashioned, primitive.
Adjective
When my father jokingly introduced my
Auntie Delilah as Auntie-Diluvian, she
reminded him that she may be old, but she
would always be his baby sister.
Ante means before. Something antediluvian
literally means before The Flood… the one in the
Bible. You call someone antediluvian, you’re
saying she makes Noah look young.
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Antiquated (ant tick waited): old fashioned,
out of date, obsolete, old.
adjective
The antiquated car was quite
dilapidated and sported a bumper
sticker saying, “Honk if anything falls
off!”
Logically enough, antiquated and antique
come from the same Latin term.
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Archaic (ark hay ick): ancient, antiquated,
old-fashioned.
adjective
I don’t want to say my old car is archaic,
but the license-plate holder reads,
“Bedrock Motors, Fred Flintstone,
Proprietor.”
The root arch means old or original.
Archeology is the study of the past, of the
older, original people and places.
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Callow (rhymes with, shallow): young and
inexperienced, immature.
adjective
The blind date had a callow sense of humor,
ending every evening with the sick joke,
“You’ve stolen my heart, but I have another
one at home in the freezer.”
This word has an interesting background.
Originally, callow meant bald or naked and
referred to a bird that lacked the feathers
needed for flying. Because the bald birds were
young birds, the word developed the secondary
meaning of young and immature.
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Hoary (rhymes with story): very old,
ancient.
adjective
The speaker who was obviously fond of
hoary jokes, trotted out the aged line, “I
don’t mind getting older, ‘cause after the
Middle Ages come the Renaissance!”
Hoary has a second meaning of gray or white,
or having gray hair from age. You can call
your grandfather the Silver Fox, or you can
call him hoary.
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Immature (rhymes with, him that sure): not
completely grown, not finished.
Derek apologized to his girlfriend for his
immature behavior, saying he was genetically
incapable of growing up.
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Ingénue (on gin oooh): an innocent, inexperienced,
unworldly young woman.
noun
The starlet said she didn’t mind playing an
ingénue as she knew she looked young for her
age, but she was tired of always playing the dumb
blonde.
The word ingenuous is related to ingénue. If you're
ingenuous, you are simple and naïve. A young girl asking a
pregnant lady, “Why are you so fat?” is ingenuous.
Don’t confuse ingenuous, meaning naïve, with ingenious,
meaning intelligent, like a genius. Confusing these two
words is an easy mistake to make, especially under time
pressure on the exam.
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Jejune (rhymes with, duh spoon): not mature,
childish.
adjective
The speaker was popular with elementary
schoolchildren because his jejune humor was on
their level, with jokes along the lines of, “What are
goose bumps for? To keep geese from speeding!”
This word actually got its definition by mistake.
Jejune originally came from the Latin term meaning
empty. Jejune usually meant barren, not
interesting, dull. But over the years, confusion with
the term juvenile has resulted in a third meaning
for jejune: childish. In French, the term jeune
means young, as in jeune enfant (young child).
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Juvenescent (rhymes with, you’ve an ess sent):
becoming young, growing youthful.
adjective
The cosmetic company called its new brand
Juvenescence, because it said the product
would turn back the hands of time to make a
younger you.
My mother always used to joke about being old.
Whenever she made a comment about something
from the past, she’d say, “Am I dating myself? I
probably am, but at least when I date myself, I
don’t have to dress up!”
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Neophyte (rhymes with, see oh fight): beginner,
novice.
Noun
The new legal secretary was such a neophyte
that she thought Roe vs. Wade were two
ways to cross a river!
You probably know the root neo means new
(think of the neonatal care unit for newborn
babies in the hospital). If you’ve had biology (or
better yet, botany), you know that phytos
means to grow. A neophyte is new at growing; a
beginner, or a new growth, like a fresh sprout on
a plant.
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Newfangled (rhymes with, too tangled):
new, novel.
adjective
The curmudgeonly old cowpoke called
the computer a “confuser,” and said he
wasn’t going to use such a newfangled
device.
Newfangled has a slightly derogatory
connotation (mental meaning). Use the
word newfangled when you’re being funny
and a little bit insulting.
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Novice (nah viss): a beginner, an apprentice.
noun
The more experienced nurses teased the
novice, saying she had to carry her
supplies with her at all times or she could
be fired for “being absent without gauze.”
The root nov means new. A novel idea is a
new idea. Ever hear of the province of Nova
Scotia in Canada? The name simply means
New Scotland.
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Precocious (pre coe shuss): developed or
matured beyond what is normal for the age,
prematurely developed.
adjective
The fifth grader was so precocious that he
was able to do tenth-grade math without
breaking into a cerebral sweat.
Pre- means before; -ous means full of. Think of
precocious as being “full of before,” or
advanced for one’s age.
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Puerile (rhymes with, sure while): childish, silly,
immature.
adjective
It was obvious he was fond of puerile humor from
the license plate on his black jeep that said “baa
baa.” (Get it? Remember hearing when you were
a kid the nursery rhyme that began, “Baa baa,
black sheep, have you any wool?” Black sheep,
black jeep? Trust me, it’s funny!)
Think of puerile as “pure child.” The term is
pejorative (critical) and means immature. Being
childlike (innocent, naïve) is nice and sweet; being
childish means you are pouting and throwing temper
tantrums like a toddler.
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Senescence (rhymes with, when yes sense): growing
old, aging.
Noun
When Amy, thinking she was clever, called into
school saying she wouldn’t be in that day because
she was suffering from senescence, the savvy
principal responded, “We’re all getting older every
day, so get yourself in here pronto!”
Actually, Amy needed to go to school to learn how to
use senescence correctly. The term actually means
“growing old,” not “growing older.” In other words,
you rarely use the term about someone young, like a
high schooler.
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Senescence (cont.)
You had juvenescence earlier, meaning growing
younger. Senescence is the flipside of that coin.
Don’t confuse senescence with senility. Everyone
is senescent; we’re all growing older. But not
everyone turns senile (see the following word in
this list).
Bonus: Do you know the word savvy, used to
describe the principal in the preceding example?
It means shrewd, understanding, discerning–
knowing what’s going on.
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Senile (rhymes with, she while): showing
deterioration from old age, especially
mental impairment and confusion.
adjective
After many years, the once dashing
war veteran became senile in the eyes of
his children and grandchildren.
Although senility is usually associated with
the elderly, not all old people are senile,
and not all senile people are elderly. A type
of premature senility can afflict young
people.
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Superannuated (super ann you ated): too old or worn for
further work; old-fashioned, outdated.
adjective
The man finally agreed to take a pension, claiming
that he was superannuated when all he wanted to do
was sleep late, have breakfast, take a nap, have lunch,
take a nap, have dinner, and go to bed early.
The root super means extra or above; annus is Latin for
year. If you have “extra years,” you are old.
Bonus word: Do you know the word clinomania? It means
an overwhelming desire to stay in bed. If you’re in the
middle of a snowstorm and just want to pull the covers
over your head and sleep in all day, you are in the throes
of clinomania.
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Tyro (rhymes with, why bro): a novice, a
beginner.
noun
The tyro-psychiatrist was so naïve he
believed it when the bartender told him,
“Sorry buddy, we can’t serve you a drink–
you’re too Jung!”
(If you’re not laughing hysterically at my joke, you
may not know that Jung was a famous psychiatrist.)
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Venerable (rhymes with, when her able): worthy of respect
by reason of age and dignity.
adjective
We were pleased to meet the venerable patriarch, who
said he became wealthy by following John D.
Rockefeller’s advice: 1. Go to work early. 2. Stay at
work late. 3. Find oil.
To venerate someone is to revere or respect him, but
venerable also carries the connotation of respect earned
over the years. You venerate an 80-year-old, not an eightyear-old.
No, don’t confuse venerable with venereal, as in the
disease. The term venereal has a much prettier derivation
than you would think: It comes from Venus, the goddess of
love.
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Veteran (vet er un): experienced, practiced.
adjective
The veteran tour guide, anticipating the
question, told his group of tourists visiting the
prison that Alcatraz meant “pelican” and that
the island was named after the large bird
colony there.
If veteran means experienced, what do you
suppose inveterate means? It means habitual,
long-standing, deep-rooted. This word shows one
example in which the prefix in- means “inside”
instead of “not.”
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