Family Guy Vocabulary Words: Feces, Dregs, Treachery Afoot!

One of the ~many~ things wrong with school is that it gives you the impression that learning is something only THEY can give you. To learn, you have to sit in cramped, hard desks. These desks must be in rows. And that gaggy smell of the chemicals the cafeteria workers use is also great for sparking deep thought.

Well, today in this class, we’re going to watch TV. Not a video of some teacher giving a lecture, but actual fun TV.  Did you ever notice how excellent Stewie’s vocabulary is on Family Guy? If your vocabulary were as rich as his, your writing would improve. You’d be a better reader. You’d rock your SAT’s. And you’d be really impressive at parties.

Today’s words come from Season One, Episode Three: Chitty Chitty Death Bang, and if you want to watch  the whole thing, you can do that here: Chitty Chitty Death Bang. But you’ve probably already seen it. It’s the one where Peter is supposed to plan Stewie’s first birthday party at Cheesie Charlie’s, but ends up acting a fool and losing the reservation so he has to trick a circus parade into coming to their house. Oh, and Meg, desperate for friends after she doesn’t make the cheer leading squad, gets involved with a cult.

But Stewie is our focus here. Stewie stomps into the living room to demand a diaper change, and learns of his birthday party:

Stewie:  I say, am I to spend the entire day wallowing around in my own feces? [claps hands] A little service here!

Peter:  Hey, Stinky. Have we got some big plans for you.

Stewie:  Plans? What the devil are you talking about?

Chris:  It’s your birthday, dude.

Lois:  Saturday’s gonna be real special, honey. I’ve hired a professional to make sure everything goes just right.

Stewie:  A professional? There’s treachery afoot!

Just to start things off right, we’re talking about feces. Feces is poop. Feces comes from the Latin word for dregs, which is another good word to know. Dregs is the sediment at the bottom of a bottle of wine. This sediment happens when the wine is unfiltered and the wine is allowed to age for a long time. It may sound gross, but only the good wines have it.  ~not so with feces. everybody poops~ The word dregs is also figuratively used to refer to the worst and lowest part of something, hence the term “dregs of society” to refer to lowlifes, miscreants, and criminals.

So, yeah. It’s actually possible to write a whole paragraph about poop without being depraved about it. You can read more than you ever cared to know about feces here.  Treachery means treason, or a betrayal of trust. It’s related to the word trick. Afoot is an medieval-sounding way of saying underway.

So there’s beginnings of our vocabulary list: feces, dregs, treachery, and afoot. Your assignment is to use as many of them as you can in the comments below: