To Vex a Verbalist

Anyone who really knows me knows that I love words. I absolutely adore them. I revel in the sound of pronouncing them. I luxuriate in their definitions. I relish structuring them into sentences and paragraphs. I wrap them around me like a warm security blanket. For me, one might say, a well tailored phrase or maxim is equivalent to a cigarette after sex.

From the moment I learned to read, I gathered vocabulary into my brain and stored it away like a chocoholic with Godiva. Even in my earliest attempts at writing, I figured out that I was a word wizard. My love for words and the sounds they made flowed naturally and easily to the page. If something had to be described as “nice,” I would immediately seek an appropriate replacement. No Plain Jane words for me. But I didn’t limit myself to writing. Oh no. I would use these new found words in conversation as much as I could. To my immigrant parents, this was both a blessing and a bane. How do you deal with a mouthy child you didn’t quite understand?

With the dawning of my freshman year in high school, I augmented my word love by joining speech and drama. It was the perfect solution for the five foot tall girl who loved to use six foot words. Imagine my glee when I realized not only was there an outlet for me to express myself, but that there were teenagers who were word nuts like me! So my vocabulary grew as I transitioned from my local high school to my local college.

As I now approach the third decade of my life, I know I haven’t changed one bit. I still listen to music for the lyrics as well as the beat. When I come across a quotation or dialogue that tickles my fancy, I write it down for future use. As I wrote my very first novel, I challenged myself to find better ways to say common phrases. I’m still not afraid to wield my large vocabulary. I married an English teacher. It’s become a part of who I am. I am complimented for my writing and speaking abilities and it is a major contributor to my success in life.

So why do I feel word lovers like me are under pressure to dumb down what they say?

“Lily, you must sit home at night and read the dictionary.”

“She probably says to herself, ‘I wonder how I can use that word tomorrow in my meeting.’”

“Knowing Lily, she bookmarks where she left off.”

This particular conversation took place not two feet behind me the other day at work because I used a “big word.” My crime? Using the word “garrote” (An implement used for strangulation).

Usually, I am unflappable when it comes to my word usage. I use a word because that’s the word I think best describes what I need to say. But it truly disturbed me that I was being accused of having nothing better to do than sit and home and leaf through an Oxford Dictionary. This is completely untrue! My source material includes all forms of media. Not wanting to cause a scene, I let the good natured jabs disappear into the workday.

I arrived to work the next day and stood in line at the coffee machine for a caffeine shot. As I was about to exit the break room, one of my fellow teammates who had chided me the day before stopped me.

“Hey, I’ve decided we’re going to play a new game,” I was told with a smile on his face. “Want to know the name of the game?”

“Sure,” I shrugged, “Why not?”

“It’s called ‘Stump the Lily.’” A chuckle from a few other teammates was emitted.

Feeling very wary of the situation, I took a deep breath and said, “And how do you play, ‘Stump the Lily?’”

“It’s easy. I give you a word and you have to define it.”

Rolling my eyes, every instinct in my body said to bolt. However, pride got the best of me. Stirring my coffee, I gave as casual a tone as I could and said, “Fine. Let’s play.”

“Cool. Today’s word is ‘tacit.’” As I rummaged my brain, my teammate even added, “You have until the end of day to tell me.”

Given that, I turned on my heel and walked back to my desk. Tacit. I knew what that meant. The difficulty was explaining it. Sipping my coffee I searched for context. Where had I heard it before? Tacit approval. Tacitly explained. I closed my eyes and I heard everyone crowding back in from the break room. Inhaling deeply, the question fell on my ears. “Well Lily, do you know what it means?”

I think it was the tone of the question. Up until that moment, I didn’t care if I got it right or wrong. It just meant that I was going to learn something new. But with that challenging tone, the answer came to me in an instant. I stood up and walked out of my cubicle and proclaimed:

“Tacit. That means implied.”

There were accusations of cheating. There were chuckles of amazement. But the one lone complaint that I knew too much was what I heard.

The next day, I barely had set my bag down at my desk when I was asked if I could define the word “magnanimity.”

Well, it sounds like magnanimous, I thought to myself. “Magnanimity has to do with charity or giving nature?” I sat down and flipped on my computer, glad to be done with the word for the day.

“Okay, how about kick-hotick.”

Umm…okay. “You mean Q-U-I-X-O-T-I-C?” I smirked, “kwix-sotick?”

“Whatever.”

“Well, that’s derived from the character of Don Quixote. So,” I took a stab at some synonyms, “I think it has to do with absurdity or something impossible.”

The look on my teammate’s face was that of astonishment. Apparently at dinner the previous night, he and his waitress had gotten into a discussion about her Ph.D. field, studying human behavior and characteristics. Apparently, she found my love for words interesting to her. So, she gave him the two previously mentioned words to try and stump me.

Holding two crumpled pieces of paper in his hands, my teammate remarked, “You are a freak. A Ph.D. candidate gave me those words.”

At this point I protested. “You guys need to get over the fact that I like to use my vocabulary. Quit making fun of me.”

“We’re not making fun of you,” was the group response. “We think it’s just odd.”

Oh, great. I’m an oddity. I sighed and returned to my desk saying, “We’re not playing ‘Stump the Lily’ anymore.”

And you would have thought it would have ended at that.

Splenetic: Marked by a bad temper, malevolence or spite (And I thought that was “bitchiness.”)

Truthiness: The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.

Evitable: Capable of being avoided (“I wish this stupid game was evitable.”)

Inevitably, my streak ran out. I got the above three words wrong the next two days. As I said before, I really could have cared less. I actually rather enjoyed learning what “splenetic” and “truthiness” meant (and I used them later on that day!). But the fact that with every error, some people in the office took some perverse pleasure in my failure, really just began to bug me.

In fact, it bothered me so much, that I did something completely uncharacteristic of me. I kept my mouth shut. I spent the rest of the day in my cubicle under the guise of being busy. After lunch, curious co-workers kept swinging by my desk asking if I was okay.

“I’m fine.”

A concerned frown crept into their faces. “Oh. You’ve been quiet all day.”

“I’m just busy.”

After about the fifth one of those, I decided to mull this over. How could my love of words, which has all always been a source of pride and joy, turn me into a temporary introvert? Why did this bother me so much? What was it about my verbiage that made people call me a freak? In this day and age where knowledge is at our fingertips, why do the intelligent get a bad rap?

By about 4 p.m. today, I decided that I really couldn’t worry about it. This wasn’t about the huge list of words in my head. If people had a problem with the way I spoke, then really, it’s their loss. I’m in this world to learn. It’s like they say, humans are empty vessels. I choose to fill mine with words. I guess my co-workers just don’t understand the exhilaration I feel being able to turn a word inside out. This is a shame.

Not only will they never know the thrill of being able to pronounce “eminence grise,” but they’ll miss out on the cool story behind its meaning.

They’re missing out on the fact that words like velvety, panting, and ragged in a sentence can launch their significant other into red alert.

They’ll never see the astonished and confused look on an adversary’s face when you tell them to “Kiss my ass,” by instead saying, “Buss my derriere!”

They’ll never slap a smile on their face in a tense situation and let the word “pithy” melt in their mouth like cotton candy.

Their lives will never be “fraught with the richness of pleasure,” it will just merely be “alright.”

But that’s okay. That means there are more words just for me.