Lisa Genova, a literary neuroscientist, has increased awareness of Alzheimer's like no other. Her book, Still Alice, was adapted into a movie that won an Academy Award for Best Actress (Julianne Moore). The protagonist, played by Moore, is a linguist, who—once diagnosed with Alzheimer's—tries her damnedest to remember/recall the words she studied her entire adult life. Early in her diagnosis, she invents a game to try and measure her vocabulary. The rules? Simple: "She grabbed the dictionary off the shelf and devised two rules for picking a word. It had to be low frequency, one she didn't use every day, and it had to be a word that she already knew." Below are words I consider 'low frequency.' I'm grateful I am able to harness them while I still can to try and put the end in #demENDtia! |
- A pocket of manicured lawns abutting Memorial Drive.
- She meant to ask John what that awkward saccade was about, but she became distracted by the gentle beauty of the cotton-candy snow that had begun to fall while they were inside, and she forgot.
- Empty shards of shell and yolk were splattered all over the wall and counter, and the faces of the cabinets were streaked with tears of albumen.
- Their gravestones were simple, like granite Brobdingnagian shoe boxes...
- John's aquiline nose...
- On those quiescent days, she was her normal self, the self she understood and had confidence in.
- I see you're giving the opening plenary session.