big words
Usually I avoid “big” words. My short tenure as a journalist instilled in me the idea that big, fancy, complicated, and antiquated words are an unnecessary and pretentious indulgence and they are only normally used by people who haven’t figured out how to properly use a thesaurus. The smartest people I know - oxford and ivy league educated professors and people - used precious little of them.
That being said, I am currently enamored with the following words.
Woeful
Languorous
Verdant
I think that in the right context they are wonderfully expressive.
Other than that, I think I might move to Japan solely for the selection of kit kat bars. Although I’ve heard they can occasionally be acquired locally. I must investigate this claim.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
OMG — those Kit Kat bars are awesome! Who would have thought?
Hmm… big words… I quite like them. Because if there is a reason for them to exist, I think we should use them…
What if it’s part of your every day vocabulary? My mother told me that when I was two and a half, I came home and told her “I was completely exhausted…” and my nephew just told me (at the age of 3) that he was “quite desperate to go to the bathroom…”
I think it all depends…on the circumstance of your upbringing?
March 20th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I used to work for nestle and those are definately not made by Nestle Canada. The specialty bars like this can sometimes be found at stores like Sugar Mountain or if you really want to try them, you can order them off ebay.
When Nestle makes specialty bars like Coffee Crisp Mocha, Vanilla Smarties or Orange or Straberry Kit Kat (sold in canada about 3 years ago) - its just to boost their sales towards the end of the year to meet their targets.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Karen, I wouldn’t really consider those big words I guess - except for maybe in the context of them being used by children. And I’m all for the appropriate use of appropriate words in appropriate contexts. I just don’t like in when people use really big (like to a ridiculous extent) words as a type of class warfare, or despite the fact that they don’t actually know what they mean (which is something you often find when people abuse a thesaurus) .
For the record, I think one or two big words a blog post is probably something I could get away with. Any more than that and it would start to look like I was trying to bull my way into a good mark in a high school English class.
Oh, and I’m adding something else to the list my Liam used today: Soporific. And I’ve always like the word transcendentalism - its just fun to say - even if the transcendentalists themselves were kinda jerks sometimes.
Erin: And I’m aware those KitKats are quite Asia-specic - which is why I’ve heard they might be available at local asian/Japanese import shops. Although I had those Vanilla Smarties once and they were pretty damn good.
March 20th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Totally agree… it has to depend…
Oooohh… If you do ever find uncommon candy in any local stores in TO, you have to share where you got them from…Would love to try them!