Word-of-the-Day Wednesday

A couple of weeks ago my Methods of Reading professor introduced us to the word "cacophony."  Her mother is a reading specialist at a local elementary school where she encourages her students to be detectives to decode the meaning of unfamiliar words.  One week they were told to decode the word cacophony. 

caco - Greek, meaning "bad"

phony - Greek, meaning "speech sound" 

Cacophony = bad sound.

Or, more techinically, 

ca·coph·o·ny [kuh-kof-uh-nee]:

harsh discordance of sound; dissonance: a cacophony ofhoots, cackles, and wails.

(dictionary.reference.com)

The funny thing is (and the reason I chose to share this word today) is that I heard it for only the second time in my life (the first being from my teacher) at the CYC today.  One of my  nerdy brilliant students' father used the word cacophony in reference to the chaos that erupted in the Yellow Room after meeting; the student understood perfectly what his father meant.  I always thought I had a decently large vocabulary, but up to a week ago apparently a preschooler had one up on me.