Creative Writing

							    Creative Writing

 Vocab Lesson 3
There’s a lot to be
learned from The
    Simpsons
           Flabbergasted
• Itchy and Scratchy never fails to
  flabbergast me. Once I think they’ve
  outdone themselves, they leave me
  speechless again!

• Adj or V. Shocked, often to the point of
  confused or speechless.
               vamoose
• Homer found that he had to vamoose,
  and fast! He had to leave Springfield
  because the town wanted to lynch him
  for dumping a silo of pig-doo in the lake.

• V. to leave quickly
                   fjord
• The Simpsons drove over the horizon
  and saw the beautiful fjords of Alaska.
  The cliffs dropped down into the ocean
  where the waves crashed. They were
  awed.

• N. Cliffs that drop straight into the ocean
                 zest
• Homer ate his pork chops with zest. He
  loves his pork chops with a passion.

• N. passion, great energy, enthusiasm
  and excitement for
• Adj = zestful, zesty
            lackadaisical
• Bart is usually very lackadaisical,
  reading comic books and lounging in
  front of the TV. But when motivated
  properly, like getting Krusty’s job back
  or getting free from the grasp of
  Sideshow Bob, he’s anything but lazy.

• Adj. Lazy, spiritless
               sinuous
• Bart skateboarded through the town,
  taking a sinuous path. He wound his
  way this way and that.

• Adj. bending and twisting; curving and
  twisting
• Sometimes has a connotation of moral
  twisting
              bamboozle
• Sideshow Bob bamboozled Chief
  Quimby into thinking that he was
  reformed; however, he really wanted to
  kill Bart.

• V. to trick or cheat
               lummox
• Barney reformed as he trained and
  competed against Homer to be an
  astronaut. He developed coordination
  and gymnastic skills, but once he took a
  sip of Champaign, he became the
  lummox he normally is--a complete oaf.

• N. an oaf; an uncoordinated person
                   iota
• Professor Frink has made many crazy
  inventions over the year, but not one
  had a single iota of practicality. There
  isn’t even the smallest usefulness in any
  of them!

• N. a jot; an infinitesimal amount
                   ogle
• Bart and Milhouse ogled the latest
  edition of Radioactive Man; he stared at
  it for the longest time until Comicbook
  Guy chased them out of the store.

• V. to stare at; to “check out”
                    quirky
• Moe is a very quirky fellow. He has a lot of
  odd habits and tendencies, like writing all of
  the horrible things that occur to him on Post-It
  notes.

• Adj. having odd and unique tendencies;
  characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits
• N = quirkiness
                    raze
• When Bart and Lisa received a lot of
  cardboard boxes, they built a castle with
  it, but the other kids wanted to raze the
  palace.

• V. To level or knock completely down
  – Odd-- “raise” means “to build or lift,” but
    “raze” means “to knock down.” Odd, huh.
                    hovel
• Groundskeeper Willy’s hovel was a small
  shack in the back of the school; the
  dilapidated building leaked and dripped and
  let the cold winds blow in. But he usually
  slept on his tractor anyway.

• N. a shanty, a shack, a small dilapidated
  building
                  D’oh

D’oh! Is this the end of the
PowerPoint?

And gee, I didn’t know Homer’s
catchphrase was in some
dictionaries! Not all of them, the
informal ones at least!