In Reply to: Re: COMELY My A@@ posted by graytst on June 12, 2002 at 15:25:49:
Hi Graytst,
It is somewhat comforting a great player as yourself NOT having run into such a "common word" in your years. I was getting the feeling I was the only recluse here. Amazingly, I've never had it played on me until recently. I do the same checking as you've described, hence COMELILY! I must say, MANLILY was new to me though as I've never felt the need to check MANLY:))
As I've mentioned previously, simply not knowing a word doesn't make it "uncommon" generically. My first inkling to it "in my mind" was it meant BECOMING which is not really its meaning. As far as NETSUKE is concerned, it was played on me some time ago and it stuck with me. I've since played it two or three other times. Always appreciate your input.
Thanks, larrysden
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: : The issue here is the level of vocabulary being considered, as, for example, formal, literary, colloquial, slang, etc. COMELY is indeed a relatively ordinary literary word; it is not particularly frequent in workaday conversation. I suspect, based on my personal observations, that its conversational usage is more frequent in Britain than in North America. (E.g., "Aye, she's a comely lass.")
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: : anti
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: : Finally some scrabble-worthy comments on COMELY/COMELILY. COMELY is not in my speaking vocabulary and it is not, to my knowledge, in the speaking vocabulary of anyone I have spoken to in the last 60 years. It is in my reading (words I know) vocabulary, as opposed to recognition vocabulary (I've seen it but don't know what it means).
: : But when I encounter a word like COMELY, which I THINK I know it's usage and definition, I always look it up later in the OSPD to see if they have any surprises for me - like COMELILY -and to double check my assumption that COMELIER and COMELIEST are good, and that COMELIES is a phony.
: : Make a habit of doing this and you will get hundreds of surprises. Do it more and you'll get thousands of "surprises". ... ... ... Graytst.