Over the weekend I discovered Save the Words which is a site that asks you to save old, outdated words. Every year new dictionaries come out and drop older, little used words. Think of the treasures we’re losing.

To help the cause I adopted oporopolist and promised to use it whenever I can. For example: “After school I need to get some bananas on the way home so I should stop at the oporopolist.” They also included a funky certificate to commemorate my attempts to save this word.

Adopting words would be a great project for any class from the youngest to the oldest. Looking through many of the words I didn’t find any that were improper, though teachers should pay attention as kids will find ways to put normal words to rude uses.

It’s a great take on vocabulary building that you can turn into an entertaining and thoroughly goofy activity.