Just call me the human dictionary.

Editing class today focussed on spelling: variant spellings, frequently misspelled words, homonyms, and other pitfalls of the craft. All the usual suspects - principle/principal, centre/center, embarrass and other tricksy hobbitses. And we got a list of frequently misspelled words to start learning. Lots of nice, interesting words.

L, who is my new friend through the two of us being in numerous classes, and a couple of the only ones just out of uni, looked the list over, and said: "What's abscess?"

"A horrible puss-filled ulcer," I said, more or less without thinking. And then laughed at the face she pulled. "Well, you did ask!"

We continued down the list. What was innocuous? Irascible?

And I got to thinking. There's lots of words I don't know the meaning of. Lots of words that came up throughout my university education, just tossed out there by educated professors we didn't want to look stupid in front of, so we never asked, even though we didn't understand. The words kept coming up, and we got some idea of how to use them, and could toss them out there ourselves and sound thoroughly intelligent (and pretentious), but we never really knew what they meant.

hermeneutics: the study of interpretation of theories, especially with regard to Scripture.

You learn something new every day, with the aid of your trusty OED.