Vocabulary Lesson

As a teacher, naturally, I'm bombarded with requests for explanation.  Rationales are in particular demand, and I keep my defenses prepared.  When my seventh grade complains about the vocabulary lessons I teach, I tell them the greater a person's vocabulary, the more distant the horizon of his thoughts.  Regrettably, I can't rely on such inspirational messages to keep them motivated.  So to make sure the kids have really done their work, I check to see if they can use the words as well as define them.  My method has brought results.  Not the kind I expected, but results nonetheless.  Like these, from Friday's last class:

intimidate ‑- frighten

Mrs. Brown's tests often intimidate me.

audible ‑- able to be heard

My father thinks I'm too audible.

imbroglio ‑- a confused mess

My English notes are an imbroglio.

teem ‑- be present in large quantity

The salt in the soup teemed.

profuse ‑- spending or giving freely

I wish my mother was profuse.

boding ‑- indicating by signs beforehand

The catcher was boding to the pitcher.

latent ‑- concealed, present but not active

John's magazine is latent in his notebook.

One glance at these answers and I knew I'd expanded their horizons.  But how to get them out of orbit?  For this I decided to enlist the efforts of the eighth grade, and in my planbook I jotted, "Review last year's first vocabulary lesson; have class comment on seventh grade errors."

As luck would have it, the intervening weekend brought illness to one of the family, and it was Tuesday before I was in school again.  My substitute‑-justifiably wary of the eighth grade‑-had made Monday's lesson a written one, and I returned to a desktop of papers.  On these, beneath the copied errors of the seventh grade, were the decking maneuvers of the eighth, in neat parentheses:

awry ‑- twisted one way

My neck is awry.

(It's not your neck; it's your thinking.)

lithe ‑- bending easily

Rubber bands are very lithe.

(If you can't tell the difference between rubber bands and cats, then you can't feed my rubber bands.)

decipher ‑- to make out

Many people decipher in parked cars.

(You didn't read the second line of the definition, Tom.  And I know it's you because you're the only seventh grader who's a sex maniac in front of teachers.)

havoc ‑- great destruction or injury

If I fail this test, my father will give me havoc.

(And your mother will give you hell.)

cogent ‑- powerfully convincing

My brother's fists are cogent.

(The pen is mightier than the sword‑-slug him with an adjective.)

I'm still working on the reentry problem for their way back.