What is it about words?
Words are very important to our way of life. We need them to communicate. I read a lot, therefore, I need words, not pictures to tell me the story. Yet, sometimes I run across a new word in a book I am clueless about. Lets take the word uxorious, it means devoted to your wife. I did not know this, in fact, my husband did not know this either, and he is devoted to his lovely and beautiful wife.
I have never heard another human being use this word, not even my friends with Doctorates.
When I was a child I always wondered why all the adults spoke in BIG words that I did not understand. Overtime I learned these BIG words and use them myself. I use them on my children, I smear them around like icing on a cake. I do this without thought. I find also that I prefer NOT to use these words because I am a rebel at heart.
Words like PRAGMATIC, why say it when you can say PRACTICAL? Means the same, yet, we (English Speakers) love to lay it on thick. Some argue we have lost the art of speaking properly. Edith Wharton(1862- 1937) complained of this herself while she was alive. Her style of writing was to bring the art of communication back.
It is natural for language to change, but those sticklers to the rules have the hardest time with the natural evolution of language. Same with Fundamentalists with Human Evolution. Let's not go there.
Change happens, it can be seen as good or seen as bad. No matter how you feel, think, or what you wish it will happen. People will stop saying some words and begin to use new ones. You either grasp and hold on for the ride, or fall off into the old fuddy duddy trap. I straddle both words. I am neither one or the other. I remain Switzerland, sometimes.
This is why I am here today. I do not understand why we need so many BIG words to say the simple things we do. We, those of us in the Western culture, make life rather complicated.
Asinine: foolish, stupid, silly
Assimilate: blend, comprehend
Indignant: insulted, angry
Jovial: full of happiness
Do you see how we complicate our lives with words? We have words already to say how we feel and what we do, BUT we love Supersize our language.
"I was so jovial today while walking through the garden, then my asinine little brother came through lopped off all the blooms off the flowers. I was very indignant after that. Mother could not make her brain assimilate why he had done that. Father thought it was disgraceful. I decided to that all was not lost, so I made a chaplet for my head. I had enough for Mother, also."
"I was so happy today while walking through the garden, then my stupid little brother came through and chopped off all the blooms the flowers. I was very angry after that. Mother could not make her brain comprehend why he had done that. Father thought it was a shameful. I decided that all was not lost, so I made a wreath for my head. I had enough for Mother, also."
I said the same things, but one was complicated and one was simple.
We do the same things with our lives. We work and work to afford a dishwasher, so we can work less. We work and work for a clothes washer, so we can work less. Soon we are working and working more to pay someone to let us use their exercise equipment, because we no longer do laundry by hand and dishes by hand, nor make bread by hand, so our arms are flabby. But isn't great how we don't work so hard no more?
Does anyone else see how silly we humans are?
Did you know in American Sign Language they do not complicate their language? Anger is anger, by any other name, it is still anger. Happy is happy. You can call it whatever you want in our language, but in sign language it is still happy.
Stop being so pretentious and stop being so catty to people that do not use BIG words. They might be highly intelligent and think you are the ignorant one because you hide behind BIG words, instead of using simple language to express yourself.
Life is suppose to be simple, we make it complicated............think about that!
