refulgence, abstruse, seditious, caviling, mellifluous, elucidate, frenetic, lambency, pseudepigrapha
I unabashedly admit there are still hundreds if not thousands of words in the English language with which I am not familiar. Almost every book I read introduces me to yet another list of words whose meanings are outside my lexicon. I lament my lack of education though I know the solution is simple: pick up the dictionary and find the meanings. With all good intents I keep a list of most words I don’t know when I read a book of particularly high-level vocabulary. But after many years of doing so I still haven’t looked up most of them.
invectives, laconic, perfidious, appurtenance, erudition, encomiastic, demimondaine, trundle, declivity
Several weeks ago I read a posting on SoulCast related to vocabulary. The author had posted a previous entry apparently using a very high level vocabulary. His readers had to use a dictionary to understand what he was talking about. The follow-up entry was a response to his original entry and those who commented on it. The author sounded far too vainglorious as he basically responded with deprecating and invidious remarks. He gloated in his vocabularius supremus (or is it the other way round?). While I found his remarks to be vexatious, I recognized the paucity of my own vocabulary, and I saw he had the obvious solution for us all: look up ten new words in the dictionary everyday. It was such a sensible thing that I could forgive him for his pomposity.
stentorian, terrigenous, fulminate, inculcate, pruriginous, grike, sconce, vespine, flounce, gilt, gnomon
It led to me to ponder a couple of things about vocabulary. The first was that I wondered how much people enjoyed reading the entry. I mean if a dictionary was needed to understand the meaning of every sixth word then reading the post was more like studying rather than enjoying a good read. I believe that most people read to enjoy a good story or learn something in a manner that is accessible to their capabilities in the language. While a high vocabulary may sound educated and impressive, what good is it if few people can understand what you are saying? In the end people will turn to blogs that they can read through and enjoy or from which they can feel things other than inferiority or discomfiture, or feel discombobulated.
The other thought was that many of us on SoulCast speak more than one language. There are plenty of bilingual, trilingual and multilingual bloggers here. While our English vocabulary might be deplorably penurious compared to someone with a PhD in the language, we know several hundred if not a couple of thousand words in other languages. At my school we have a book for children called First Thousand Words. The words are all simple daily things, mostly nouns. If you know all those words in another language then your total vocabulary is more expansive than you might give yourself credit for. If you know them in two other languages then more power to you. As an adult your vocabulary level probably goes beyond those first thousand words. The thing is that many words in English are nothing more than formal or literary forms of the more familiar vocabulary we use everyday. So whether we know five words for ‘wealthy’ in English or two in English and two or three in other languages it still measures out the same. Just we can communicate the concept of having wealth to people who don’t understand English but can understand the other languages.
caul, atherosclerotic, philately, vesicant, tergiversator, ovoviviparous, ignominy, inveigle, palaver
In conclusion, I think we could all do well to learn a few new words and try to incorporate them into our writing and speech. The lines of words I have stuffed in between my paragraphs have all come off my lists scribbled down as I read my books (and I haven't looked up the meanings of most of them yet). However, more importantly is that we can communicate our ideas and thoughts clearly. A good vocabulary helps but there is a limit to how much the average reader is willing to consult his dictionary or thesaurus while reading a blog or even a book for that matter. Good advice I once heard is to always use the vernacular when writing. You will reach a greater number of people if you do.
When the heck am I supposed to use words like stereoisomerism anyway?
