I consider myself to have a fairly broad vocabulary, yet I often find myself grasping for the right word--it often takes between 24 hours and never before I think of the word I'm looking for. Yesterday in an email to a friend I actually said I was "dissed." I don't think I've actaully ever used the word "dis" before in my life. It wasn't until I was driving home later that evening that I realized "slighted" was the word I was looking for.
I also sometimes consider myself sort-of a writer, but I usually can summon words no more descriptive than "wonderful" or "great" or "amazing" when describing something (see, I just used "descriptive" and "describe" in the same sentence because I couldn't think of the right word!!) And all-too-often "cool" and "awesome" rear their ugly high-school heads and leap from my tongue unbidden.
On Monday we had a staff day-style feel-good fest for all of the employees of my government agency. Our guest speaker was a woman from the Governor's office whose second-most used word, right after "um," was "incredible." She is supposed to be (incredibly) smart, but between the poor speaking skills and limited vocabulary, she sounded incredibly not-smart.
I am concerned that I too sound incredibly not-smart because the words...all those lovely words...that I want lie unused at the bottom of the motherhood-addled pit that used to be my brain. Which would just be incredibly, incredibly sad.
Oh how we sacrifice ourselves for our children. I've been pondering this very phenomena since hanging with all the lovely demented folks.
ReplyDeleteOh how we sacrifice ourselves for our children. I've been pondering this very phenomena since hanging with all the lovely demented folks.
ReplyDeletesorry about the duplicate
ReplyDeleteThat is EXACTLY my problem! Since my son was born, sometimes I just sit at the computer and stare at the screen for 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes before I can think of that perfectly normal word I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteDo you think we ever get our sharp brains and our thesaurus-like vocabularies back? Here's hoping! =)
and what does it say about me that it never occurred to me to question your use of the word "dissed?!" i mean, i'll admit...since i haven't heard it used since the 80s, it did occur to me that perhaps you were using the word in some retro-cool way that i am clearly not hip to. which you really could have played off, btw.
ReplyDeletebut i can relate. i often find myself saying aloud "what did i just say?" after yet another grammatical bungle. at least my kid isn't old enough to correct me. yet.
Word choice is so important. I've been reading through my manuscript and have suddenly realized how often I use the words "really," "However," and "but."
ReplyDelete