The other night, I was at a party and used the word "cromulent". After looking it up on our phones and proving that it was indeed a word, someone asked me where I'd heard it before. I explained that I'd picked it up from comic books (more specifically, a story from Amazing Spider-Man depicting a feud between Dr. Octopus and Hammerhead). Thinking back, I know the reason I have many words in my vocabulary is from reading comics. For instance, invulnerable and ineluctable come to mind, and I'm sure many others would if I could remember that far back.
So, what words have you added to your vocabulary that you discovered from comics?
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Geez! Pretty much all of them! I was reading comics before I went to Elementary School!
There must be many, but I'm sure of "invincible" (from "The Invincible Iron Man") and "excelsior" (in "Stan Lee's Soapbox"), and probably "noisome" (because where else could I have run into that?). I first ran into "voila" in the story from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. #9 - a French pilot in an air race cries "Voila! Voila!" when he catches a falling woman - but I thought it meant "hooray".
Probably also "sanctum sanctorum", but I don't know where; possibly from a villain such as Dr Doom - "You dare invade my sanctum sanctorum?" I thought I remembered seeing it on the cover of Fantastic Four #198, but that has "inner sanctum" (and must be the first place I saw that).
"Arachnid" comes to mind immediately, when I started reading Spider-Man back in the late 70s, his enemies seemed to always be snarling at "accursed arachnid" at him.
Actually, "cromulent" comes from The Simpsons. I don't know about vocabulary so much, but I was inspired to learn a little science from all those "Flash Facts" back in the day.
Luke Blanchard said:
IIRC, That term was often used to describe Dr Strange's mansion.
Besides many of those already mentioned, elongated, as in Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man.
At first I thought it was elegant, until my mom told me otherwise.
Either way, big words for a young 5th grader at the time.
Thanks, Detective. I might've learned "noisome" from Edgar Rice Burroughs; he probably uses it somewhere.
Actually, Elegant Man sounds like he might be a very cool character indeed.
Lee Houston, Junior said:
I’m fairly certain that the first word I learned from comics was “Bedlam” (from Amazing Spider-Man #73).
I can also definitely include “belligerent” (from Doc Savage #1).
The first word I picked up was most likely cosmic, considering the way the Silver Surfer kept saying it.
I remember wondering why Iron Man wasn't invisible, so finding out what invincible meant was probably a close second.
Elongated was such a complicated word I used to call Dibny the Elastic Man.
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