[Industrialblog,
September 30, 2005]
Gold Star
An ongoing joke here at IndustrialBlog, usually delivered without much in the way of hint, concerns my love of big, obscure words. What some people call pretentious I think is funny. Big words, after all, have a purpose. They often mean very precise things, things we all know about but had no idea there was an exact word for. They condense language, often allowing us to say in one word a concept that would take five, 10 or even 20 words otherwise. Thus, they allow us to think more densely.
Plus, there's something immensely amusing about using a 50-cent word to polish a concept that's a bit low-rent. Is it better to say "coprophagous" or "shit-eating"? Is there a better word for a no-work job than "sinecure"? Is it better to say "nice ass" or "callipygian"? Is there better word than "anomie" to describe Kurt Cobain's lyrics, "Here we are now, entertain us!"
Anyway, that said, these days it's rare that I read a sentence that contains two of these gems, neither of which I had ever seen before, much less know. Francis P. of Eternity Road writes:
This is not a man to be trifled with in an argument. BTW, I have no comment on the substance of his post. But lucubrations? Anfractuosity? Two Gold Stars and go to the head of the class!
Plus, there's something immensely amusing about using a 50-cent word to polish a concept that's a bit low-rent. Is it better to say "coprophagous" or "shit-eating"? Is there a better word for a no-work job than "sinecure"? Is it better to say "nice ass" or "callipygian"? Is there better word than "anomie" to describe Kurt Cobain's lyrics, "Here we are now, entertain us!"
Anyway, that said, these days it's rare that I read a sentence that contains two of these gems, neither of which I had ever seen before, much less know. Francis P. of Eternity Road writes:
Your Curmudgeon will concede that his customary lucubrations are noteworthy principally for their anfractuosity.
This is not a man to be trifled with in an argument. BTW, I have no comment on the substance of his post. But lucubrations? Anfractuosity? Two Gold Stars and go to the head of the class!
For example, I think that we are all familiar with books which are obviously by NYT writers because the author either (1) lives with such insularity that he has no idea what words actually are common or (2) probably sleeps with his thesaurus under the pillow in case he should need it in an emergency.
I agree that there are plenty of indespensable words which are unfortunately uncommon (you run accross this in philosophy and theology all of the time), but the result is that you either have to give up having much of an audience or dispense with them anyway, whether in a footnote, an aside, or a previous chapter.
That being said, Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton is one of the most sublime and rich books ever written, and to my recollection the sum total cost of the words in it is probably no more than a few dollars (i.e. they're mostly $.01 words, figuring that you get some common ones like "a", "an", "the", etc. for maybe $.01 for 30 and words like "man", "castle", etc. for $.05 for 10).
Apropos of which, don't use foreign words. And avoid cliches like the plague!
I was talking generally about Bill's point that big, obscure words can be useful, not about your particular use of them.
Chesterton, btw, said that big words are mental labor-saving devices. I'm not sure that I disagree with him. From Orthodoxy: