Shitty Vocabulary
I come from a long line of people who celebrate words: etymology, root words, suffixes, synonyms, neologisms, slang, rhetoric . . . what have you.
I, myself, have been know to enjoy the diagramming of a sentence. I also adore the thesaurus, and even have www.thesaurus.com bookmarked as a favorite.
HOWEVER.
However, my vocabulary is awful, and this has never been as apparent to me as it is when I comment on other people's blogs. I can be so impressed with the person's thoughts or stories or artwork, yet all I can come up with is: "neat."
Or "marvelous." Or "fascinating." Or "interesting."
I'm surprised that I haven't used "good." Maybe I have.
When I was student teaching 10 years ago, the kindergartners would participate in a weekly "show and tell" session; they would get up in front of the class holding some junky toy like a ratty, plastic doll, and say things such as: "This is my baby doll. I love it. She's nice . . and that's it."
The other kids would then brainstorm these kinds of brilliant questions (delivered in monotone, crosslegged, by the way):
"Do you love her?"
"Yeah."
"Do you sleep with her?"
"Yeah."
"Do you like her a lot?"
"Yeah."
"Do you play with her?"
"Yeah."
That's basically how I feel. Like I'm at such a loss for words, limited by my weak lexicon (Y'like that one? Don't get too excited--it's a speech-language pathologist word, drummed into me through years of compulsory higher education), that I sound like a five year old.
No, wait. I think that a five year old sounds more articulate.
I suppose that I could pursue different activities to improve my shitty vocabulary. I could do crosswords and other type of word games. I could be ambitious and read the dictionary. I could actually look up words that I don't recognize while reading, instead of relying on context clues.
But I won't. I'll just continue to go to people's blogs and type comments like: "really good," or "I like this."
After all, would someone with a good vocabulary use the word "shitty" as an adjective?
* POTTY MOUTH:
As a sidenote, I'd like to also acknowledge my love of curse words. There is nothing better, to me, than dipping into that arsenal of curses and tossing a few out. Some would say that this is further evidence of my shitty vocabulary; I would say that it merely speaks to my open, unrestrained and unconventional nature. Words are just letters strung together. It's people who make words ugly.
I, myself, have been know to enjoy the diagramming of a sentence. I also adore the thesaurus, and even have www.thesaurus.com bookmarked as a favorite.
HOWEVER.
However, my vocabulary is awful, and this has never been as apparent to me as it is when I comment on other people's blogs. I can be so impressed with the person's thoughts or stories or artwork, yet all I can come up with is: "neat."
Or "marvelous." Or "fascinating." Or "interesting."
I'm surprised that I haven't used "good." Maybe I have.
When I was student teaching 10 years ago, the kindergartners would participate in a weekly "show and tell" session; they would get up in front of the class holding some junky toy like a ratty, plastic doll, and say things such as: "This is my baby doll. I love it. She's nice . . and that's it."
The other kids would then brainstorm these kinds of brilliant questions (delivered in monotone, crosslegged, by the way):
"Do you love her?"
"Yeah."
"Do you sleep with her?"
"Yeah."
"Do you like her a lot?"
"Yeah."
"Do you play with her?"
"Yeah."
That's basically how I feel. Like I'm at such a loss for words, limited by my weak lexicon (Y'like that one? Don't get too excited--it's a speech-language pathologist word, drummed into me through years of compulsory higher education), that I sound like a five year old.
No, wait. I think that a five year old sounds more articulate.
I suppose that I could pursue different activities to improve my shitty vocabulary. I could do crosswords and other type of word games. I could be ambitious and read the dictionary. I could actually look up words that I don't recognize while reading, instead of relying on context clues.
But I won't. I'll just continue to go to people's blogs and type comments like: "really good," or "I like this."
After all, would someone with a good vocabulary use the word "shitty" as an adjective?
* POTTY MOUTH:
As a sidenote, I'd like to also acknowledge my love of curse words. There is nothing better, to me, than dipping into that arsenal of curses and tossing a few out. Some would say that this is further evidence of my shitty vocabulary; I would say that it merely speaks to my open, unrestrained and unconventional nature. Words are just letters strung together. It's people who make words ugly.
posted by Cate at 10:18 AM
5 Comments:
my vocabulary isn't the best either, but I find when I expand it most of the people I know have no idea what I'm talking about any way. :)
Spoken English, or any other language for that matter, has never been my strongest trait. I could probably never diagram a sentence correctly even if my life was on the line. Many times I am told that write as I speak, which in many circles, makes peoples skin crawl.
I also have a big problem with word retrieval. I seem to be the person in the group who says a word and it may sound close to the one that is supposed to be used but it is just not the right one. I am not talking about mixing up 'affect' and 'effect.' I am talking about mistakes like 'contraction' vs. 'contradiction'.
I have to agree with busy91 and that sometimes it is better staying on the simple side. Many people who you may think know what you are talking about, may have no clue what you are saying.
How many people would really know what you were talking about if you said that their work, whether written or drawn, was pulchritudinous. Would they be offended or not?
Read ya' later!
Busy91,
I know what you mean. When I try to use "the big words," I find that people sometimes stare at me and I get paranoid that I've mispronounced them!
Thanks for stopping by!
Human Z,
Awww, you poor thing, Mr. "Master of No Language, Written or Spoken." I think you write quite well, and I also think YOU'RE pulchritudinous!
I laughed at this because I love diagraming sentences and have dictionary.com bookmarked but have the same vocabulary, or should I say vernacular? problem.
This is the best entry! I feel as though I could have wrote it! I do the same thing. I love words and then draw a blank when I am posting comments (and on my own blog, as well sometimes.)
I also love cuss words! (not a great or proud habit!)
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