Words I Love

In its most general form, “matriculate” means “to be added to a list”. It’s one of the most passive, uninteresting actions ever reduced to verb form. By this definition, milk matriculates every time I go to the grocery. It’s silly.

But of course, most of the time we use “matriculate” to mean we’ve enrolled in college. But we already have a word for that…ENROLLED! It means almost the exact same thing. So here we have this redundant, useless word. But a-ho! Therein lies its strength, because given proper context, “matriculate” can act as a stand-in for almost anything! In fact, I had to create a new category, “Wild Card”, just for this purpose.

So the next time you can’t think of a word, just substitute “matriculate” and I guarantee people will understand you.

• I just can’t matriculate an answer for you. You’ll have to matriculate it yourself.
• We tried and tried, but we just couldn’t matriculate your arm. It’s been matriculated.
• That girl is crazy! We were matriculating all weekend! Now my balls are all matriculated!
• I haven’t matriculated in days and I’m all backed up.
• Oh christ, I matriculated all over your bathroom. So sorry.