Jazz Up Your Lesson
ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE
Want to know more precise names for fellows around you?
Then lets play a guessing game!
Here you will find lots of different names for different categories of people. Try to
guess who these people might possibly be from the amusing storylets. Then check your guess
with the help of the glossary.
It wasn’t at all surprising that Simon was an omphalopsychite. He was but a hobbledehoy, and it was difficult for him to engage with others. |
Are you mononomial? Jessica is. Lisa-Irene is binomial. Can you give an example of someone trinomial or quadronomial? |
Jeff liked to think he was a bel-esprit, and to that end, he was always trying to coax a laugh or a smile out of his students when he lectured on the history of 17th Century Europe. Unfortunately, he was nothing but a witling. |
Gertrude and Ernie had different approaches to selling at the weekly flea-market. A chafferer, Gertrude believed her technique engaged customers and brought them back the following weekend. Ernie, on the other hand, was a higgler, and he had to admit that he had fewer repeat buyers. |
Eddy was a fidimplicitary, so it came as no surprise to him when Flot announced that she had found his car-keys after a three-hour search. She, on the other hand, had thought they had disappeared forever, and started wondering if she was, in fact, a thaumaturge. |
Emilia had three grandchildren, but a fourth was soon to be born. Her oldest daughter was a primipara; her second daughter, a multipara, and the third, a primigravida. |
Would you rather be a smiling agathist or a gloomy futilitarian? |
Would you rather be a high-flown eminento or a poor little criddow? |
GLOSSARY:
| agathist | is like an optimist, but more rational and profound. He accepts evil and misfortune but believes that it is the ultimate nature of things to tend toward the good and to improve |
| futilitarian | someone who accepts the absolute futility of life and human aspiration, believing that it is pointless to strive for anything and foolish to have hope |
| primipara | a woman who has had one child |
| multipara | a woman who has had two or more children |
| primigravida | a woman who is pregnant for the first time |
| mononomial | is a person with one name |
| binomial | is a person with two names |
trinomial |
is a person with three names |
| quadronomial | is a person with… you can probably guess how many names =) |
| bel-esprit | a person of refined intellect and graceful wit |
| witling | a person who tries to be funny but isn’t |
| omphalopsychite | a contemplator of the navel, a bellybutton mediator; hence a completely self-absorbed person |
| hobbledehoy | someone who is no longer a boy but not yet a man, especially an awkward teenager |
| chafferer | a vendor who enjoys bantering while making a sale |
| higgler | a salesperson who is a stickler about prices |
| eminento | is a distinguished or a famous person |
| criddow | is someone who is broken or bowed down from age, sickness, poverty or grief |
| fidimplicitary | a person who has implicit faith (may be used both positively or negatively) |
| thaumaturge | someone who performs wondrous things, a miracle worker |