Rose City Journal Comments
Allow me to offer a bon mot.
There.
:LOL:
:D
M
But seriously...
I was an inveterate user of "two bit words". I am one who truly mourned the passing of Wm. F. Buckley Jr. and who enjoyed his profligate use of words like profligate.
I'm certainly not exactly what one would call an intellectual, at least not any more. But I was well educated and I have always had a facility for language. By facility, I mean curve busting. When I was in high school, there was exactly one person in Ohio who scored higher on the PSAT (it became a bit less pronounced as I got older, but it was still there into college). I'll assert strongly that I did not practice or train my language skills, either. It just came naturally. I spoke the words I felt worked best in general and without regard to much else.
The unfortunate part is that when one is young (and some of us take a bit longer to wise up than others), and a bit socially insecure, one plays overmuch to one's strengths. In many cases, those entail vocabulary. When out trying to impress, the best language comes out, along with dropped names and other bits of credential that a young fool thinks might impress.
The problem is that socially insecure folks tend to often be youthfully self-absorbed. They fail to realize that their use of vocabulary appears to be an effort to exclude those who are less linguistically enthused, talented, or educated from the conversation. It's ironic, really. They (we?) assume everyone commands the same language skills so we behave in a manner that makes them (us?) appear quite exclusionary and elitist.
It's a put off and it serves no one well, really, save the guy at the other end of the bar who knows to shut up, smile, and ask folks about themselves.
When one is confident and comfortable in one's own skin, it's easier to naturally gauge where to target one's words and to worry more about being understood than about how impressive one sounds.
Many folks might call that being considerate. Of course, one might also call it cynically dumbing down one's speech in a non-genuine manner in order to be socially accepted.
The cynic might wonder, which is more insulting: having someone talk over your head? or having someone "dumb-down" their speech?
None of which is to say that listening to someone use words that are NOT part of their normal speech in an effort to impress or intimidate isn't just plain annoying/pathetic.
Also, no matter what, we owe at a minimum, a respect to those we are speaking with that requires that we actually use words that communicate our full thought to them. It's simply rude to use words and phrases in conversation that folks won't understand. If you don't care that folks understand you, why should they care to listen?
M
Success is in the eye of the beholder?
Mark: Well said. I love words. Books, talking, doing crossword puzzles, watching the Wheel when I get a chance and of course, writing.
But I don't feel like I use words to impress other people or to make them feel bad, either. The person I was speaking about sounded much like the person you described, in the early years of Mark. I do think people who try to throw around their credentials are probably trying to mask their insecurity- or in some cases, they are trying to impress a potential new friend.
I like a good exchange of wits just like the next gal, but sometimes when I am drinking a beer I don't want anything more than a "how ya doin'?"
Also, and I didn't get into this, but I was doing everything I could to change the topic or just to get him to pipe down, and he wasn't picking up on that at all. Just kept directing the conversation where he wanted it to go. He was boorish at best and extremely dull at worst.
Chelle,
ha, yes, I think success is in the eye of the beholder. For better or worse. Because everyone measures this differently, it's hard to get a grip on what success really means. To me, it's being happy. That's the biggest measure of success and the one that seems to cross lines of salary, house size and the rest of it.
Amen sister!!
Ack! I hate these people!
I always wonder what they do when they're not sitting there talking to me. Do they have friends? Are their friends just like them?
I always imagine two pseudo-intellectual "friends" sitting in a room. Talking over each other, each trying to one-up their friend, and never connecting.
I feel like the people I have come across who were pseudos tended to surround themselves, in their private lives, with people who seemed pretty quiet. I think that many of their relationships are one-sided. In other words, they do most of the talking.
All. the. time.
"Ack" is my word. Stop using it.
The proper term is "Akq".
As you know, it is derived from the Farsi word Acquew, meaning cat barf.
Whatever. The point is that he needs to stop saying it. ha.
Lisa,
Why don't you come on over and make me stop saying it!
ack, what a bully.
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