Definition

1. Experienced or realized through imaginative or sympathetic participation in the experience of another

2 a. serving instead of someone or something else

b. that has been delegated

3. performed or suffered by one person as a substitute for another or to the benefit or advantage of another: substitutionary

4. occurring in an unexpected or abnormal part of the body instead of the usual one.

(Ref: Merriam-Webster Online, Word of the Day, 18 January 2020)

Use it in a sentence

They strapped themselves in, Min pulling the belt a little more snug than Li. He felt her smirking, so Min looked at her and frowned. ‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ she smiled back, eyes wide with innocence.

Min took a deep breath and tried to relax but he realised he was still straight as a board and at least two inches away from making contact with the back of the seat. He deliberately pushed himself into it, and then placed his arms on the armrest on Li’s side. A stranger sat in the aisle seat.

Very soon, Min was gripping the armrest until his knuckles turned white, and he bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt the tension creep down his neck, his legs cramp up and a fine perspiration bloom on his brow. He heart was already racing, out the gate and down the straight.  

They hadn’t left the ground yet.

‘Sweetie. It’s fine. Come on now. Just think how lucky we to vicariously live the life of birds. Swooping through the air, climbing into the sky, looking down on the world.’

He glanced up to see her smiling serenely at him, dreamy and happy.

He scowled. ‘Nobody ever rode a bird.’

Li burst out laughing, then quickly covered her mouth, trying to hide her mirth.

Min snatched at the small plastic water bottle tucked into his seat pocket, and took out his sleeping pills. He swallowed one and turned away from Li. She heard him mumble, ‘Just wake me when we land.’

Definition

1. Prevelant especially to an increasing degree
2. abundant, common
3. copiously supplied: abbounding.

(Ref: Merriam-Webster Online, Word of the Day, 31 July 2020)Top of Form

Use it in a sentence

Faced with a problem, she turned to her favourite source of sage information – Google (capital G). There was an answer to everything. Indeed, she loved how often Google could accurately predict what you wanted to know, like magic. And she was always intrigued by the suggested endings that came up when you started to key in, ‘How do you….’ Change a tyre? Bake chocolate chip cookies? Make a bomb?   

But Google wasn’t her only oracle. There was also Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Apple News. The people there always seemed to have a good solid opinion about what you should do and think, and even what you should NOT do and think. She admired that assuredness.

What she liked more than anything, was the random conversations she struck up with people on forums, meetup and subgroups. She enjoyed the thrill of talking to someone she’d never met, albeit from a safe distance. She was active member of a knitting group (she was still getting the hang of it), a ‘Save the ferrets’ group (so cute, though she’d never owned one), and the vintage clothing, scholars of the Enlightenment, and the beach lovers groups.

The Lonely Hearts group was perhaps her favourite. They seemed the nicest and kindest. The men always called her sweetie and asked what on earth she was doing there, which made her blush, even though they couldn’t see her. It never occurred to her that the Internet was also rife with bots, kooks and stalkers, and that a group called the Lonely Hearts was also a potential hotbed and powerful magnet for charlatans and rascals. The kind who would drain your bank account even as they robbed your heart. She drank it all up like iced tea on a hot summer’s day.

But she turned back to Google now and thought about how to phrase her problem. She typed, ‘How do you … cure loneliness?’

Definition

1. Lively in temper, conduct or spirit: sprightly.

(Ref: Merriam-Webster Online, Word of the Day, 10 August 2020)

Use it in a sentence

Meredith carefully moved her cup of tea out of the way, and smoothed out the newspaper in front of her. She could have read the review of her debut novel online, but there was something deeply satisfying and momentous about turning to good old-fashioned print. After all, she often still wrote with pen and paper.

Her hands shook just a little. Her heart raced.

Here.

Review of Must Hate Dogs, by Meredith Caspin

Ms Caspin displays an audacious capacity for creating complex and vivacious characters that incite envy, compassion and hate in the reader, and all in equal measure. The main character’s antics involving his aunt and her knitting circle are a fascinating reflection of today’s vulgar infatuation with narcissism. And, although predictable, the scene where he bludgeons the dog and tosses the collar nonchalantly over his shoulder is still shocking and gruesome, and perfectly demonstrates his unhinged nature and the nature, indeed, of all those smarting from the 21^st century’s rebuke.  

But ultimately, Caspin’s debut novel is only one more in a conga line of dystopian tales that seek a perverse if subtle revenge on previous generations and their idealistic literature. Who cares if the dog died? The answer, Caspin seems to want to tell us, is nobody. And if nobody cares, why should the reader?

A wholesome effort, but generally forgettable.

Meredith realised her jaw was hanging open and her eyes were watering. The reviewer was known for his blunt and scathing evaluations, especially of debut novels – he felt it was his duty to play the priest in a baptism of fire. She had steeled herself for criticism, but this – this was a bloody execution. The worst of it was that she didn’t even understand half of it. Rebuked by the 21^st century?  Perverse if subtle revenge?

Meredith got up from the table, picked up her cup of tea and hurled it out the open back door with a vehemence she didn’t know she was capable of. After breathing hard and grinding her teeth for a moment, she turned her back on the smashed pieces of ceramic and went to her kitchen cabinet. She rummaged around until she found a half bottle of wine she’d opened a while ago, for cooking. Meredith didn’t drink, and the wine was already far gone. But she unscrewed the lid and took a long swig.

Then she collapsed into a chair and burst into tears. She howled too, unashamed. Woeful and destroyed.