Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Love affair

Found myself using the words 'resurgence', 'amenable', 'inundated' and 'traipsing' in various bits of writing recently. Am pleasantly surprised and unaccountably proud of myself :p  Not that I planned to be bombastic, but the words slipped out naturally, prompted by the occasion, and that makes the word nerd in me applaud, lol!

Since I started teaching, I've been constantly simplifying my speech, seeking the most common, easy-to-understand words when explaining concepts to my students. Sometimes I fear I'm losing my command of English. I've always been able to wield words like a weapon when I want to, and reach into my quiver to select one with the precise nuance which will hit home and convey exactly what I want to convey. It's a gift I've had for as long as I can remember.

But it's also a gift that can't be appreciated by all and sundry. It'd go *whoosh* over my students' heads, for example! So sometimes I hold back. I do this instinctively if I feel the other person is at a linguistic disadvantage. It's my way of sort of levelling the playing field :)  We might not be jousting, but language is about communication, so to me it makes sense to use the most efficacious mode of communication, even if that might mean restricting myself to the 2,000 most frequently used words in the English language. Yes, there is a list. You can go google it ;)

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