“What is this rigmarole?” my mom said. I didn’t know what a rigmarole was, but I knew from the tone of her voice that it was not good. Recently I found myself writing that word, pulled from somewhere in the depths of memory. I was uncertain still, exactly what it meant but it felt like the right word for the sentence. Just to be certain, I typed it into the Google search box. rig·ma·role (rĭg′mə-rōl′) also rig·a·ma·role (-ə-mə-rōl′) n. 1. Confused, rambling, or incoherent discourse; nonsense. 2. A complicated, petty set of procedures. That was exactly what I was trying to say! Much of my vocabulary was learned in this fashion, by word usage. I couldn’t give you the dictionary definition, but I knew what it meant. I knew how to use it and when, but words are more than that. Words have a sensual quality and a connotation. They paint pictures that a different word would not. I cannot hear o...