About Words
"Could we not use such big words?" - spoken by a student in a seminar discussion at TESC
"Big words are elitist claptrap." - also spoken by a student from TESC in a small group discussion
I often hear or read complaints about the use of "big" words. But what a sad place the spoken and written word world would be if we remained contented using only the words that we don’t need to look up in the dictionary. It’s a bit like salad greens in the 60s. Although there were dozens and dozens of types of delicious and varied salad greens, we grew up thinking iceberg lettuce was it. This was probably because ubiquitous iceberg kept well and its shape was handy for shippers. But we sadly missed out in more than one way by the lack of variety. The same goes for words - new words even "big" words can add depth and subtely to our ability to express our thoughts or to group together thoughts in meaningful concepts so here’s to dictionaries and big words. Yeah!
See my art on this topic here.