Word Nerds, I’m joining Bermuda Onion for her “ Wondrous Words Wednesday” meme. It’s a 
chance to share interesting words and to learn something too!
Last week, I heard an interesting NPR Story called The Fiscal Cliff for English Majors. (Perfect, right?) The reporter compared to the political rhetoric surrounding the looming fiscal cliff to great pieces of literature.
For example, he mentioned how in act four of Shakespear’s play King Lear, The Duke of Gloucester, a blind man, stands at what he believes to be the precipitous Cliffs of Dover. But he’s not. However, his son, taking advantage of Gloucester’s disability, describes vertiginous cliffs, hoping to convince his father of imminent danger.
Forget the relevance to the modern political battle; what interested me was the word vertiginous. Of course, being a P.T. on eternal maternal hiatus, I’m familiar with vertigo, but I didn’t know an adjective about it existed.
Here’s some info from Webster’s:
Vertiginous \vər-‘ti-jə-nəs\ adj from Latin vertiginosus, from vertigo; it can mean:
- suffering from vertigo
- characterized by frequent and pointless change
- causing or tending to cause dizziness
- marked by turning
Clearly, the example from the story above uses the “causing dizziness” definition, but I like the “characterized by frequent and pointless change” usage too.
Word Nerd Workout
Use today’s word to describe a vertiginous situation you’ve found yourself in- using any of the definitions above.
My example:
While my husband drove our rental car along the vertiginous Road to Hana, I stared down at the surfers paddling in the turquoise water off of the coast of Maui.
And for those of you interested in politics, the point of the comparison between the looming fiscal cliff and Shakespeare was that the cliff might not be as vertiginous as some politicians would like us to believe.
Other word nerdy words:
A Gift For You!
As the year ends, I’d like to thank my readers with the My Favorite Things Giveaway! Readers leaving a reply will enter into a drawing to win one my favorite books of 2012.
The details:
- You may enter by commenting on the blog between December 7 and December 19.
- Your comment must include your favorite book from 2012 and a short explanation of why you recommend it.
- Available anywhere Amazon ships.
- I will announce the winner on December 21.
- The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
If you don’t want either of these two, I’ll send you a B&N gift card and let you choose your own. I’m hoping that this giveaway will help us all find great books to read in 2013! Thanks for sharing your favorites!
Hi there! Came across your post through Wondrous Words Wednesdays. Love your words and your blog! I can’t wait to find a way to use vertiginous.
Welcome Caitlin! I’m so glad you like the blog. Thanks for stopping by.
I’m all too familiar with vertiginous since I suffer from vertigo at times. I’ve had quite a few vertiginous moments rolling over in bed.
Sorry to hear that Kathy! Vertigo is never fun.
I’ve been writing standardized test prep questions all morning and don’t have it in me to come up with a sentence using vertiginous. I did want to say that the NPR story you mentioned sounds awesome! I’m going to see if I can find it on the web.
Emily, The link is in my post- in bold. I’ll start underlining links so that people know that they are there! My current theme doesn’t show links in a different color- much to learn still!
Good luck on the writing job. Doesn’t vertiginous fit into your test prep? 🙂
I love that word! My husband took me to Buffalo Bill’s Wild Wings for dinner last night, and it was a vertiginous assault to the senses. And I will never be eating there again 🙂 Great word, thanks for keeping me thinking. Love your “P.T. on an eternal maternal hiatus” sentence.
Thanks Amy – I’m sure you can relate to maternal hiatus!
Sorry your dinner wasn’t more enjoyable.
Awesome word! I didn’t know that vertiginous was related to vertigo. I’m trying to teach derived words to one of my fifth grade spelling groups right now. (The other one is still working on doubling consonants when adding suffixes, sigh.) I might have to throw vertiginous out to them today … not that they’ll know what vertigo means.
I was pleased as punch when they got why Washington’s army was called the Continental Army. (But only after I pointed out it was a derived word.)
Happy to give you something new and fun to spark those young minds! I love derived words, and teaching my kids to use them- I think it helps so much with reading and vocabulary. And later, maybe even SATs!