Articulation
Jan. 30th, 2004 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistHere's what happens in my Advanced Fiction class: we're given an assignment on Wednesday, and three students e-mail their work to everyone in the class on Sunday, so we can talk about it in class on Monday. Last week I was one of those three.
The first thing I heard was ridicule for sending it as an attachment instead of poorly-formatted text in an e-mail, as the other two had done. Apparently I was remarkably ambitious.
The next thing said (by the same kid) was that I'd used too many big words. He said my first-person narrator, a college kid, would not say incessant or peril. I think he thought I was being pretentious, but I thought nothing of such word choices.
It made me smile when the professor said that even though he'd only seen me in the three or four class periods we'd had so far, he could see me saying those words. My choice of words seems obvious to me, of course, but I didn't know that it might be distinctive to people who'd just met me.
Other than these things said by a kid I don't like anyway, my scene went over really well with the class and the professor, which both surprised and pleased me. So I'm left thinking about words.
I remember a friend once saying to another friend and I, in the course of some conversation, that we probably are more articulate than some or most of our peers; we just don't notice it because we talk to each other. Perhaps not coincidentally, both of them are also English majors. But I don't want good words to be thought of as something that should be avoided lest you be thought an English major or a nerd.
Not that I'm advocating sesquipedalianism. I hate it when people use big words for the sake of using big words (as I just did, to demonstate!). You're not going to impress anyone ... anyone who's smarter than you, at least. When I was in high school, my brother went through a phase where he'd look up words he found impressive and try to use them as if he knew what he was talking about. And now there's a story told to me by a friend of mine who was in a class with him about how once, when he had to get up and give a speech, he boasted "I am skilled in the art of preening." Don't do that to yourself.
I've never really tried to expand my vocabulary ... and yet when I read those "Expand Your Vocabulary" things in magazines or whatever, I usually know a lot of the words. I can only attribute this to the fact that I read a lot ... and that if I see a word I don't know, I might look it up, because I like words. (I finally got around to Schadenfreude this week--I've seen it a lot, but never sought out its definition--and I'm sorry it took me so long; any word that means "Malicious enjoyment of the misfortunes of others" should be part of my vernacular!)
Why do I like words? I think they're fun, but they're important, too. I do believe that the words we use affect the thoughts we think (how Orwellian, I know), and while simple thoughts and speech sometimes have their advantages, it's nice to have all the tools at my disposal that I can get my hands on. Just in case. Someday, advocate or vernacular will be exactly the word you need, and it will trip lightly off your tongue or your fingertips.
I may be monolingual, but since the language I do know has the largest lexicon of any of them, I may as well attempt to take advantage of it.
The first thing I heard was ridicule for sending it as an attachment instead of poorly-formatted text in an e-mail, as the other two had done. Apparently I was remarkably ambitious.
The next thing said (by the same kid) was that I'd used too many big words. He said my first-person narrator, a college kid, would not say incessant or peril. I think he thought I was being pretentious, but I thought nothing of such word choices.
It made me smile when the professor said that even though he'd only seen me in the three or four class periods we'd had so far, he could see me saying those words. My choice of words seems obvious to me, of course, but I didn't know that it might be distinctive to people who'd just met me.
Other than these things said by a kid I don't like anyway, my scene went over really well with the class and the professor, which both surprised and pleased me. So I'm left thinking about words.
I remember a friend once saying to another friend and I, in the course of some conversation, that we probably are more articulate than some or most of our peers; we just don't notice it because we talk to each other. Perhaps not coincidentally, both of them are also English majors. But I don't want good words to be thought of as something that should be avoided lest you be thought an English major or a nerd.
Not that I'm advocating sesquipedalianism. I hate it when people use big words for the sake of using big words (as I just did, to demonstate!). You're not going to impress anyone ... anyone who's smarter than you, at least. When I was in high school, my brother went through a phase where he'd look up words he found impressive and try to use them as if he knew what he was talking about. And now there's a story told to me by a friend of mine who was in a class with him about how once, when he had to get up and give a speech, he boasted "I am skilled in the art of preening." Don't do that to yourself.
I've never really tried to expand my vocabulary ... and yet when I read those "Expand Your Vocabulary" things in magazines or whatever, I usually know a lot of the words. I can only attribute this to the fact that I read a lot ... and that if I see a word I don't know, I might look it up, because I like words. (I finally got around to Schadenfreude this week--I've seen it a lot, but never sought out its definition--and I'm sorry it took me so long; any word that means "Malicious enjoyment of the misfortunes of others" should be part of my vernacular!)
Why do I like words? I think they're fun, but they're important, too. I do believe that the words we use affect the thoughts we think (how Orwellian, I know), and while simple thoughts and speech sometimes have their advantages, it's nice to have all the tools at my disposal that I can get my hands on. Just in case. Someday, advocate or vernacular will be exactly the word you need, and it will trip lightly off your tongue or your fingertips.
I may be monolingual, but since the language I do know has the largest lexicon of any of them, I may as well attempt to take advantage of it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-30 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-30 05:28 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 06:16 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 06:17 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 06:59 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 07:00 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 08:08 pm (UTC)"and then the robot started dancing"
Re:
Date: 2004-01-30 10:21 pm (UTC)::runs and hides::
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-30 05:44 pm (UTC)I find that most people who complain about the use of "big" words, can't be bothered to study language at all. Most of these are people who claim that they're writers, but also admit they don't like to read (many of them are in journalism and English classes).
Kinda scary.
The language that came out of nowhere to conquer the world
Date: 2004-01-30 05:53 pm (UTC)Complaints about laziness were originally going to be part of this entry, actually, but it's long and sprawling enough as it is. I'll save the lazy-thinking rant for some other day.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-30 06:59 pm (UTC)I learned the word "Schadenfreude" from The Simpsons. Ditto "perspicacity."
Re:
Date: 2004-01-31 12:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-01 10:45 pm (UTC)