Your vocabulary is showing
- Michelle Wood: SWCD
- March 26, 2018
- 1459
These words describe me: sesquipedalian, vocabulary-expander, wordsmith. Anything else I say after this will let you know that my tolerance for poor word skills is thin.
Excellence in conveying one’s thought is something I take great care with, though my editor knows I still have a bunch of grammar errors. I love a good semicolon, but where does it go? I do not require you to use a semicolon to be my friend.
But I think we need new words, a different turn of phrase or way of saying what we mean. If I’ve said it before, then you’re going to hear me say it again: Your vocabulary is showing.
“Happy Birthday insert-name-here! I’m so proud of the person you’ve become!” This is a typical sentence we type, mainly because we give no thought to the word usage. We don’t labor over typing it because it’s a throwaway phrase, a no-brainer, and cliché enough to make my eyeballs fall out.
I’ve never done a study on words we use and reuse, but I believe whole-heartedly that after reading the same things over and over we begin to use them. They drop into our brains because of repetition, falling stealthily into our lexicon until we believe they’ve always been there. Language is funny that way. It’s consistently being added to.
I can name a few words and phrases that have become pressed, unfortunately, into our consciousness in recent years: fake news, millennials, mainstream media, snowflake. If you’re still using "on fleek," know you’re "cancelled" because that word is over. You’ll get a big side-eye from any teen within distance of you.
I’m a basic big-word person. I like how strong, solid words slide off my tongue or from my fingertips. I try to stay relevant (there’s another one) in usage and form, only using a little slang here and there. I avoid stereotypes like the plague and check myself each time a cliché political phrase (or any cliché phrase) wants to dribble out of my mouth.
I love politics but not the terms that are pounded into our heads over and over, trickling down through the masses until they’re being spoken urgently and repeatedly as if law. Politicians words, on both sides of the aisle, are not written in blood and come and go as quickly as the bell bottom or skinny jean did. They’re OK for a short time, but we need to be alert to when they’ve run their course and let them fade.
I’ll never apologize for my love of language and words. I can be watching TV in the evening, relaxing on the couch with my husband, and I’ll dissect the lines being spoken on the show. Each syllable separates softly in my head, or I type them out, moving my fingers slightly. Have I ever mentioned how much I love to type?
The next time you sit down to write out a birthday greeting to your kids or husband or wife or whoever, take the time to find words that mean something. Pop out the thesaurus (my favorite) and discover a new word.
Don’t let catchphrases become your language, making your words sound like every comment and post ever made, every political slogan. We don’t have to succumb to words that rage in the air around us because words can be spread like fear. Find your own glossary and make it authentic because it’s good to stand out in a weary world of monotony.