What did people tease you about growing up?
(Niki)
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| Sorry, Ray Conifer |
You know, it's impossible to get upset or defensive when someone points our your mistakes using such fantastically baroque language.
And who am I to judge anyway? According to the kids of New Richmond elementary and middle schools back in the 1980s, I had a pretty florid vocabulary myself.
I always got teased about how I used "big words." Apparently I was quite loquacious as a child. Perhaps it was my prolixity during show and tell? I have no idea.
Honestly, I never tried to be obnoxious about my vocabulary...it wasn't like I was choosing $5 words in an attempt to be cool or show anyone up. I mean let's face it, as a school-age kid there's not a lot of social capital to be gained from being labeled the smart kid. So who would go throwing "big words" into the mix, devaluing their own stock even more?
Not this kid.
I have, however, always enjoyed expanding my vocabulary. Maybe getting branded as a user of "big words" stuck with me, but in a good way? I love my thesaurus. I have freeonlinedictionary.com on my bookmark toolbar at home and at work. I love learning new words. Not patently ridiculous words... words that are useless or exaggerative. But words that you might actually use to beautify conversation... words that make you appreciate language... words that are just right for a given situation...
...words that make you chuckle when your arboreal stewardship is being impugned.
1 comment:
I know you posted this forever ago, but I was reading back through posts and realized I didn't comment on this, and I really, really should have - because this is one of the reasons we are so simpatico, obviously. My family are the ones that tease me about my vocabulary endlessly, and I'm afraid Aedan will be subject to this teasing at some point, too, to hear him speak. But I'm cool with that - it will serve him well later in life. Or that's what I keep hoping.
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