Catchphrase

Have you ever met someone who uses one really big word, and uses it over and over again, in a sort of sad attempt to convince you that they are smarter that they really are?

The new quarter starts today, so this week is the meet-and-greet, here’s your syllabus week. One of my (lit) professors had the unfortunate habit of using the word “adjudicate”. I’m always happy when my teachers use big words, but this was a bit excessive. She used it at least 5 times within an hour period and I’m fairly certain that she used it wrong at least once.

I get very annoyed at people like this.

In my history/debate class in high school (I’ll explain that in a later blog post (maybe)), you would always run across student who had that one word and would run it into the ground. “Collaborate”. “Integral”. “Interdisciplinary”. Words that don’t really add anything to what they’re saying, but sound really good in combination.

I have a big vocabulary. I read voraciously as a child, and I still do today. These big words slipped into my every day speech. “Pulchritude”. “Infinitesimal.” “Voracious”. To many people, I am “the walking dictionary”. So in a way, I’m as bad as those “catchphrase” people.

But unlike them, I tend to make ALL of my words concise and meaningful. I like to believe that using precisely the right word enhances my speech, instead of detracts from it.

Or maybe I’m just a pretentious word snob, like all the rest of them. I guess you can be the judge.