When I was at university, studying English, we had a few vocabulary classes. That professor was actually one of my favourite teachers ever! It was a very typical vocabulary class, all of us sitting at desks with our headphones on. The professor would speak into a microphone, which we heard in the headphones. Then, he would put on some kind of tape where we had to repeat the words and focus on pronunciation. Once in a while, the professor would cut in, straight into your headphones, and work with you on specific words or pronunciations. It’s everything I’d ever imagined a vocabulary class to be like, based on movies and books I’d read.
But that’s not why I liked the class or loved the professor. It’s because he really instilled me with my love of the English language, by showing us the richness and variety of it. I’ve never learned so many new words as I did there. I learned to work with a thesaurus, and he would spend quite a bit of time on synonyms and antonyms. And the best time I ever had there, was when we discussed the word “thing”. It’s a very versatile word and can replace almost any word or type of word in any sentence. Go on, try it!
And of course, the word “thing” also has many synonyms. These are my favourites of “thing”:
- doodad
- doohickey
- gizmo
- gimmick
- thingamabob
- thingamajig
- dojigger
- whatchamacallit
- whosamacallit
- whatsis
- thingummy
Amazing, right? I’ll come back soon with more (hopefully) interesting word facts. For now, I bid you:
Happy reading,
Loes M.