I haven't always been in love with words. Heck, my mom reminds me regularly of how she was so worried about me in 5th and 6th grade since I basically had quit reading ( I blame the Book It program, but that's another story). I do remember the first word that I fell for: plethora.
It was 8th grade. I can't even really remember if it was a class or just a friend that brought it to my attention. I do have this picture of my best friend Katye and I, though, at our lockers in the upstairs back hallway of East Junior High. Our friend Casey was there as well. I wish I could remember exactly what went down, but I have this blurry 15 second repeat and rewind of the three of us talking about what it means and trying to come up with ways to use it in our everyday conversations. I have a plethora of homework today... There are a plethora of idiots in my 3rd block... or something like that. I still love the word plethora to this day.
My brain was open for business then. I had been reading Stephen King voraciously since coming across Misery the summer after 6th grade. Katye and I also spent a huge amount of time watching and re-watching what would become classic movies, leading to another favorite word: inconceivable. All Princess Bride fans just expelled a collective chuckle because that's one of their favorites as well. The arrogant Viccini. The unexpected doggedness of the Man in black. And Inigo's dry observation: That word you keep saying. I do not think it means what you think it means. Hooked!
That annoyance at Viccini filtered into my high school experience when debaters would casually say words to sound intelligent but instead used them wrong. I did not call that out publicly, but I did hold it internally, waiting for a moment to vocabulary duel. (44-year-old me is thinking, At least that kid was trying). These days, it's not about sounding smart. (I'm not sure it ever really was.)
These days, it's about the joy in the words. The elation at finding just the right connotation to truly and concisely convey the meaning I am trying to make. My students ask me, why do you have to use such big words? Am I? They aren't big words; they're just my words. The way I talk. It's the way my husband and I talk with each other. It's the way I share ideas with others.
I am enamored by the way the words form in my mouth. I am giddy when there is a word on the tip of my tongue that I just can't quite get out clearly. The search begins. Up comes the internet- Dictionary.com or merriam-webster.com. I start typing in what I think the word is, reading the various definitions, trying to decide if that's the angle I was looking for or if it's a dead end. Thesaurus.com is next on the list as I try to type in those other words that mean the same thing but just not quite... Will it pop up? What a thrill!
I can picture me re-telling this story in my classroom. There would be a plethora of eye rolling coupled with almost palpable disgust at the inconceivable notion that I could get so excited about a word to put into a lowly email or test question. The nuances of words and meanings lost due to the fact that it's now somehow too tiring or too disrespectful to others to use words bigger than good or bad, great or awesome, sad, mad, or tired.
And yet hope lingers. A favorite memory from a reading class vocabulary lesson leaps to mind. My juniors were researching terms that included the root word corp. And one of the girls came up with corpulent. The next class, she arrived with her eyes smiling and told us of her argument with her mom the night before. She looks at me with the biggest grin and tells how she called her mom corpulent during their fight. She then rehashes her mother's frustration and anger because she didn't know what that word meant. It really gave this girl, who had been a struggling student during most of her school years, such a feeling of power. A sense that she could win. It gave her the confidence that she could and would use these "big words" in her every day life.
Now, I'm not saying that everyone should stockpile their cache of words in order to have the next epic roast. What I do want to note is that words have so much power. And, no duh, tell us something we don't know.
Instead of unleashing that power against others, though, let it melt into you. Breathe it in. Swirl those syllables around in your mouth. When those words do come out, let them make the world sound more vivid and intoxicating than before.
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