Sometimes when you see or hear a word or expression you wonder, why don’t we use that one more often? Do we remember the meaning? Words like “thwarted”, which isn’t a wart with a lisp , but rather means to be prevented or blocked from doing something. It is nice to find words that describe exactly what is being experienced. Remember when we were learning the meaning of words as a child? It felt like a struggle to enlarge one’s vocabulary, wondering why we needed more words to mean a similar thing, like sad. Maybe nowadays we use the word depressed too much instead of alternates, like sad or could say melancholy and better describe our pensive reflection? Would we get another’s good attention if we said we felt melancholy?

How about being “hoodwinked,” as in tricked or deceived ? That feels kind of lighter sounding and allows one to laugh at oneself to say they were hoodwinked. “Downtrodden”describes a person who is beaten down by life and their circumstances, maybe even grey in appearance. In the dictionary it has a strong meaning of being abused or oppressed by people of power. Do we tend to now use the definition of words used in the past more than the words they originally defined? Hmmmmm

To be “cheeky” is more a British term, like to be fresh or outspoken. It is fun to incorporate new words to describe our feelings or a situation as it gets people’s attention if they haven’t heard it before. Gobsmacked was used by an American actress in a TV interview and the interviewer and most of the audience didn’t know the word. Perhaps they were gobsmacked. “Gobsmacked “: to be utterly astounded; flabbergasted.

Being “vexed” over something, to be perturbed or worried; or how about using “surly:” gruff, sullenly ill-humored ? That could fit many of our current life experiences or feelings. Maybe we can reintroduce some less used words and phrases into our day to day and gobsmack some friends?