[PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was a reporter for the Daily Astorian (in Astoria, Oregon) and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as an Oregon state government manager and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing pubic policy – to what I write. If you are reading this, thanks for doing so and please don’t hesitate to respond so we can engage in a dialogue, not just a monologue.]

As those who know me will understand, I always have enjoyed the use of words over pictures and graphics.

In that way, I suppose I am out of touch with the ways many people process information these days. Words, pictures and graphics tell a story, for many, better than words.

Not for me.

It’s words.

So, I am learning a few new ones lately. Here are four.

Gobsmacked: I saw this word first a couple a few weeks ago in a piece by Peggy Noonan, the former political speechwriter turned columnist. In writing about the presidential campaign, she used this word, which both falls of the ear and says much even if you don’t for sure what it means. The definition is this: “Uutterly unfounded, astonished.” Those words could describe many political campaigns these days, including, especially, the one being run by the blowhard Donald Trump.

Pettifoggery: This word also showed up a Wall Street Journal political column on the presidential contest. It means “insignificant, dishonest or unethical, petty,” again words which describe much of the current presidential campaigns on both sides of the political aisle.

Apologia: You could probably figure out what this word means because its root is apology. This was used by a Wall Street Journal columnist in describing the work of a New York prosecutor, Preet Bharara, who tried to write new law relating to insider trading. Appropriately, he did not succeed because the work of a prosecutor is not to write new law, it is to enforce current law. The definition of “apologia” is “an attempt to explain or justify one’s motives, convictions, or acts” without regard to facts, context or views of competing interests.

Zeitgeist: Again, I’ve heard this word before, but could not figure out what it means. So, fittingly, I looked it up in the dictionary. It means “the spirit of the time; the general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time. “ Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger used it in this way: “That is the zeitgeist, the blunt reality, that a brilliant naïf like Ben Carson has tapped into, but that standard politicians have not.”

So, especially as we follow political campaigns in the next months, watch for these words and understand their meaning, but be alert for new words.