A New Word

I love doing crossword puzzles, and do several throughout the course of the day. It's often intriguing to find the same word, sometimes with different clues, used by different puzzle creators on the same day. In time, you can begin to sort out which of several possibilities to try just by knowing who the puzzle author is. Generally, the puzzles start out fairly easy on Mondays, getting progressively harder through the week.

Today, one of the puzzles turned out to be a real poser (pun only slightly intended). I managed to get 3/4ths of it done, but there was one section where I just couldn't put my finger on one or two essential answers. So I hit the trusty internet and scrounged answers I thought would shed enligtenment on the remaining few blanks.

Yep! You got it! There was one which just plain turned the rest into gobble-de-garbage.

What would you have put down for a six-letter word meaning "good humored"? With a couple of spots filled with what I knew were the correct letters, I came up with 'jovial'. I already had the J and the O. But that word just didn't help me a bit when it came to the other letters. So, I continued scrounging, and learned a new word:

Jocose

I like that word! I like the way it sounds and the way it feels when you say it. I even like the way it looks on the page. There's something about it that just seems "good humored". Maybe it taps into "jocularity" and memories of Father Mulcahy on MASH saying "Jocularity! Jocularity!" I don't know. But I think I'm going to try to find a way to include it in my vocabulary whenver possible.