“Mummy,” I asked, “what does temerity mean?”
I presume she told me. I don’t remember the definition she gave.
"So, can you be temerous?” I was an inquisitive child.
Again, I can’t quote the answer, but the summary was that no, temerous was not a word. I was dispatched to consult the dictionary[*].
I was outraged. How could temerous not be a word? I could say it, I could define it, it was an obvious companion to temerity. This was clearly an administrative failure by the custodians of language. An oversight. Who were these people responsible for writing dictionaries, were they too timorous to include all the words that were? Timority, there was another missing word.
I searched language, and found it full of holes. Why was there no aidful?
My mother, growing weary of the unanswerable, told me that the word I wanted as helpful.
No, it was not. Helpful belonged to help. Where was the appropriate word for aid? Why had no one noticed that there were words missing, and who should I write to to get the error rectified?
It took me a long time to get over this particular wrinkle in the universe.
These days, I’ve moved on. If I can use it, and you know what I mean by it, then it damn well is a word. I’m just that temerous.
[*] The Concise Oxford, which did indeed not contain it. These days I own a Compact Oxford, which is ironically much bigger and full of delightfully arcane nonsense. It absolutely has an entry for temerous.