Alison Bechdel Makes Me Feel Stupid

I finished reading Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home” the other day and I really enjoyed it. However, I noticed something stupefying while reading it – there was a plethora of words with which I am unfamiliar. Out of the 217 pages of story, there were 121 words I did not know. That comes out to about one word every 1 and ¾ pages.

Just for reference, I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in journalism, so I have a pretty good understanding of the English language and I like to think my vocabulary is above average. But it is shocking to realize the amount of words in the book unfamiliar to me. Always having a thirst for knowledge, I decided to write down every unfamiliar word or phrase so I will no longer be dumbfounded upon reading them and so they might enter into my vocabulary.

To be fair: 1.) I put asterisks next to words that I’ve heard before, of which I think I know the definition but wanted to make sure or know the word or root word but am unfamiliar with its usage in this book; 2.) Some are proper nouns, such as characters from Greek mythology, which I’ve never studied, or types of furniture or home furnishings; and 3.) According to her Wikipedia page, Bechdel served, or at least was invited to serve, on the American Heritage Dictionary’s usage panel in 2006. So it can be argued that she has a vocabulary far superior than most of the English-speaking population. (She still makes me feel stupid.)

The list (sorry about the weird spacing):

Artificer Monomaniacal* Demur* Gilt Cornice* Legerdemain Daedalus Libidinal Scabrous Bargeboard Girandoles Hepplewhite Aesthete* Incipient* Simulacrum Chippendale Buss Pervasively* Suffusion Finial Consummate* Aplomb Obelisk Provincialism Urbane Luxuriant Vitalis Grimmsian Cook stove Evocative* Bactericidal Dessicated Existentialist* Gallic Aspersions* Doleful Edifying* Noblesse Chaste* Heady Tremulous

Tenuous Redolent Ardently Efflorescence* Twining Fecundity Sinew* Prestidigitation Demiglace Milieu Lexicographical* Succor* Cartilaginous Transposition* Post lapsarian Vexingly* Archetype* Nonduality* Lissome Maudlin Idolatrous* Crepuscular Precipitate* Hadrian Berm Rapt* Festoon* Stopgap Bathetic Solipsistic Autodidact Autocide* Mori Epistemological Gossamer* Onerous* Circumflex* Cursory Synchronicity* Juxtaposition* Protracted*

Elliptic* Moussaka Unencumbered* Martyrology* Incontrovertible* Overwrought* Lacunae Sanctimonious* Sauntered Reading gaol Repudiation Basest All-pervasive* Beatific Histrionic Orgiastically Tautology Cognitive dissonance* Archetypal* Selfsame Enumerate* Divagations Ministrations Anaphrodisiac Trepidation* Procuress Scylla Charybdis Triumphal* Joist* Solemnity* Libertine Derision* Equivocal* Predilection* Obtunding Beseeching* Renunciatory Consubstantial