Big Words

 I was charged by someone the other day as using "big words" that she had never heard of. The word that I use seldom but now, because it was appropriate for what I was imparting, was "vociferous". I described someone who was "loud", too loud for my liking and the term seemed the most appropriate. What surprised me was that the woman had never heard it and that's what made me begin to think about language in general. One of the university courses I had not taken but wanted to, was Linguistics. Language and words have always been of keen interest to me. Lately, I am fascinated by Aborigine words posted on  lands now bearing their original names. I need help in learning how to speak them because their pronunciations are complex in my language experience. Language is very important to culture. What we say is borne of our life experience. If you grow up with a certain way to speak and words used, it becomes your language. Within that language, there are levels of complexity. To explain that isn't easy but one way, is to think of being a writer of children's books. Children are learners. They start from zero. All of their senses and memories have to do with their growing and changing surroundings and experiences. What they hear and see and feel, becomes their speaking language. At first, their reading and understanding is limited and simple because they are learning day to day as new events occur in their lives. It all begins at birth and some think, even before that in utero. Sounds are tried out by little ones who learn that language offers opportunities. Without some kind of  language, it's hard to survive. Reading and writing and their uses rise and can thus be described as levels of language.  When someone says "you're using big words that are too big" means that they are not comfortable with that so-called level of vocabulary. It shouldn't be considered low or high but merely a level of learning. We continue to learn language and achieve "words" all of our lives. Some people are called pedantic which means they are deliberately "showing off" in using complicated words that others don't understand. Then again, it could be their natural language level or one that they have assumed out of their own personal experience. They are also innocent as charged.  New words come to us every day and some are more fascinated by them than others. There should be no class system in the matter but it happens anyway. Churchill, I am told, used simple, elegant English language when he wrote his famous series of books about warring. He also spoke in parliament, the same politically powerful way. We are all impressed by those who have learned many languages and can speak them fluently. I find words fascinating and always have, from the second I learned that the sqiggles I saw as a young child in a book or what my father was looking at behind a newspaper, and that these symbols had some kind of mysterious strength. Reading expands vocabulary. It's all part of daily learning.