Vocab from We Bought A Zoo

Last week, we rented We Bought a Zoo, starring Matt Damon as a Benjamin Mee, a recently widowed dad struggling to start his life over.  Before his wife’s illness, he worked as an investigative reporter, so he has some word nerd tendencies.  

In one scene, he argues with his 13 year old son Dylan on the way to school.   Eventually, Dylan mutters, as many adolescents do, “Whatever.”   Mr. Mee launches into a tirade (as I might); he hates the word “whatever” and insists that Dylan come up with a better word to replace it.  


Dylan offers “pernicious”, an excellent substitution and a testimony to his dark side. Of course, since Mr. Mee is a writer, he can rattle off a definition immediately when his younger daughter asks for one.  Can you? 


Pernicious \pər-‘nish-əs\ adj. from Latin pernicies, destruction; highly injurious or destructive




Word Nerd Workout:  Can you offer a synonym for pernicious, one not already used here?    Better yet, can you also come up with a replacement for “whatever“?  Something as clever and descriptive as Dylan did?  Leave your suggestions in the comments, and thanks for stopping by!

See my posts on other fun Word Nerd Words:

Julia
Julia Tomiak
I believe in the power of words to improve our lives, and I help people find interesting words to read. Member of SCBWI.

7 Comments

  1. I like Amy’s answer, “Yes, mother,” would work wonders for me. And amalgamation. Isn’t that when you amalagate two things together.

  2. I still say “whatever” to my parents and I’m close to 30. Maybe it IS time that I start coming up with some suitable synonyms. Thanks for the word nerd workout!

  3. The thing that drove my mom insane was when we’d say, “DUH.” That’s way more disrespectful than “whatever” but I heard both from my kids, and I didn’t like hearing either word! I’m with AmyMak on this – when I heard either word come out of their mouths, I responded with, “EXCUSE ME?”

    To which they replied, “Yes ma’am.”

    I don’t really have an applicable word for you, but I’ve always loved the word ubiquitous. It’s just plain cool 🙂

  4. I’ve really been wanting to see that movie, and now I MUST! Um…as clever? I ask my children to replace, “Whatever” with “Yes, Mother.” 🙂

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