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Gosling: (GOZ-ling) noun                 

            1. A young goose.              

            2. A naive or inexperienced young person.  

[Middle English, variant (influenced by gos, goose), of gesling, from Old Norse gaeslingr, diminutive of gas.]

            Its downy feathers still clinging to the nest, the smallest gosling struggled to keep up as the gaggle headed for the park to get in the bread line at water's edge.

            He was doing all right until he was squashed flat by a Jeep Eagle filled with Audubon Society members on their way to a "Save Our Wetlands" meeting – N

Grand Guignol: (grahn gee-NYOL) noun      

            Drama that emphasizes the horrifying or the macabre.   

[After Le Grand Guignol, a theater in Paris.]

           Ironing, for me, is a grand guignol which leaves me irritated and exhausted, never soothing or smoothing, signifying nothing -- N

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Background: 

Along with countless other people the world over, I enjoy my subscription to A. Word. A. Day. that results in a daily email message with interesting, sometimes completely unknown-to-me words, along with pronounciation guide, etymology typical usage and more.

The New York Times hailed AWADmail as: "The most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace."

One day way back when, I decided that for learning, it would be helpful and fun to use the words AWAD sent to me in a sentence or two. Of course I found myself going beyond that and using them in not-so-obvious ways that entertained my friends as well as myself. Sometimes I use words incorrectly on purpose. But if you know the meaning, you get the joke. It is kind of a backward way of doing things, but that's creativity, right?

The first character inspired by AWAD was Maraj (not her real name.) She has quite a few fans. At the encouragement of several persistent friends, I decided it was time to share her and the others with my new friends here at OS, and begin on the first day of 2010. 

I'm offering vocabulary words I received from AWAD and what I wrote to practice using them. Tell me this isn't a much more fun way to work on improving one's vocabulary. Enjoy. Maraj and more will be back – and check out www.wordsmith.org to sign up for the free subscription. They don't know me, but for fun tell them I sent you. Like OS, it can be addictive. -- Natalie