{"id":84520,"date":"2015-04-08T17:57:33","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T21:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=84520"},"modified":"2015-04-09T10:39:47","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T14:39:47","slug":"new-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/","title":{"rendered":"New Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1000px-Ambidextrie.svg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sometime in the third grade, a girl in my class began to claim she was ambidextrous. Previously, this girl had said she wanted to be a marine biologist. She also claimed to have athlete\u2019s foot. This girl was a pretentious liar.<\/p>\n

In fairness, marine-biology ambitions were all the rage that year. We were just moving beyond the easy descriptor stage; it was no longer enough to want an occupation you could identify from a Richard Scarry book, such as baker, doctor, or fireman. Now people wanted to be not just teachers but middle-school<\/em>\u00a0teachers, not just football stars but running backs\u2014ideally, our choices conveyed an element of mystery and worldliness to the other kids. Still, generally speaking, our ideas for future careers were about as complicated as those you see in contemporary romance novels, where the heroines have easily explained jobs that seldom seem to interfere with the business of being a glamorous grown-up.\u00a0Marine biology, with its vague hints of tropical waters and dolphins, seemed like a perfect career path for both the frivolous animal-lover and the committed scientist. None of us was sure what it entailed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In any case, this one aspiring marine biologist announced one day that she was ambidextrous, which, she supposed for some reason, would make her a particularly excellent marine biologist. We were learning cursive at the time, and she explained that she could write cursive with either <\/em>hand, because that was how her brain worked. She demonstrated. Both sets of writing were illegible, so her point was effectively made.<\/p>\n

After that, a number of other people discovered that they, too, were ambidextrous. Everyone started scrawling things with their left hands just to see if they could. (I ascertained that I was not ambidextrous.) The one lefty in the class acted very superior about the whole thing, because he could already do certain things with his right hand and had to use a differently shaped pencil grip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The teacher ultimately made everyone stop being ambidextrous. She made us go back to our regular cursive drills. We soon seemed to lose interest in marine biology, too; I don\u2019t think anyone from our class has pursued it as an adult. Most people have the kind of complex real jobs that fill in the cracks of daily life and that don\u2019t occur to kids: jobs without dedicated costumes or unique tools. Jobs, that is, in which ambidexterity probably wouldn\u2019t have much application, anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I do wonder about that girl from time to time\u2014if she\u2019s writing with both hands or pursuing life as a biologist or even if she\u2019s merely contracted athlete\u2019s foot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometime in the third grade, a girl in my class began to claim she was ambidextrous. Previously, this girl had said she wanted to be a marine biologist. She also claimed to have athlete\u2019s foot. This girl was a pretentious liar. In fairness, marine-biology ambitions were all the rage that year. We were just moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[17714,17716,189,13623,17715,13158,17717,219,3203,2393],"class_list":["post-84520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-ambidexterity","tag-athletes-foot","tag-children","tag-growing-up","tag-marine-biology","tag-memories","tag-pretension","tag-school","tag-vocabulary","tag-words"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Ambidextrous Marine Biologist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When you\u2019re growing up and learning new words, your vocabulary takes on a strange dimension.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Words by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 8, 2015 \u2013 Sometime in the third grade, a girl in my class began to claim she was ambidextrous. Previously, this girl had said she wanted to be a marine biologist.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-08T21:57:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-09T14:39:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"846\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"New Words\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-08T21:57:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-04-09T14:39:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/\"},\"wordCount\":446,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png\",\"keywords\":[\"ambidexterity\",\"athlete's foot\",\"children\",\"growing up\",\"marine biology\",\"memories\",\"pretension\",\"school\",\"vocabulary\",\"words\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/\",\"name\":\"The Ambidextrous Marine Biologist\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-08T21:57:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-04-09T14:39:47+00:00\",\"description\":\"When you\u2019re growing up and learning new words, your vocabulary takes on a strange dimension.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"New Words\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\",\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sadie Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Ambidextrous Marine Biologist","description":"When you\u2019re growing up and learning new words, your vocabulary takes on a strange dimension.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Words by Sadie Stein","og_description":"April 8, 2015 \u2013 Sometime in the third grade, a girl in my class began to claim she was ambidextrous. Previously, this girl had said she wanted to be a marine biologist.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2015-04-08T21:57:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-04-09T14:39:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":846,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Sadie Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sadie Stein","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/"},"author":{"name":"Sadie Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9"},"headline":"New Words","datePublished":"2015-04-08T21:57:33+00:00","dateModified":"2015-04-09T14:39:47+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/"},"wordCount":446,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png","keywords":["ambidexterity","athlete's foot","children","growing up","marine biology","memories","pretension","school","vocabulary","words"],"articleSection":["Our Daily Correspondent"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/","name":"The Ambidextrous Marine Biologist","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png","datePublished":"2015-04-08T21:57:33+00:00","dateModified":"2015-04-09T14:39:47+00:00","description":"When you\u2019re growing up and learning new words, your vocabulary takes on a strange dimension.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/1000px-ambidextrie.svg_.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/new-words\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"New Words"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9","name":"Sadie Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sadie Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84520"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84534,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84520\/revisions\/84534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}