There's something extremely satisfying about wordsmithing. Assembling the words, which convey specific meanings, each and every one, placing them in a sentence, then building more sentences, which lead to paragraphs, tweaking the piece here and there, shifting this and that, getting it just right. It's a craft, oh yes it is, like art or sculpture. And, like in any field, there is competition.
Hannes Wolf- Unsplash.com
I check up on other writers from time to time, I'm always doing it, I read their stuff and there are some pretty clever cats out there layin' it down. Yesterday's Thought Of The Day was a big struggle for me, I worked on it and worked on it, trying to distill the essence, but couldn't get it to where it satisfied. The clock eventually ticked away and I threw something out there, which I wasn't entirely happy with but it's the Thought Of The Day, not The Thought Of The Week. I've made a personal commitment to produce and so, sorry folks, you get what you get. (It's in the Terms And Conditons post I put out about a week or so ago, the caveat where I explained those finer points).
Likewise, from doing this writing, I know that my fellow writers are having the same struggles as me. "Do I use this word here, or not? What about that third sentence? Something in there doesn't seem quite right. Oh, the hell with it! I'm just goinna start over!" Oh yeah. I know thery're going through all that. Piecing together this stuff isn't easy sometimes- hell, a lot of the time. Some days you are in the flow and it just happens, on others the stars are crossed and the brain isn't cooperating so much.
So, the other day, I'm checking up on the competition and I read a well-crafted and very clever post that makes me want to holster my pen forever and say "You're the pinball wizard, man, the wiliest, craftiest cat East of the Mississippi, the bees knees, a god amongst men. Whatever IT is, I knew that this wordslinger had it, because the dude used Big Words not once but six times, as if to flaunt his prowess and have us mere mortals genuflecting in the glare of his magnificence. I'm gonna lay out those words for you here and you'll see what I'm referring to. Do you know what they mean? Not generally, but specifically? (word key at bottom of page)
1. 'venality'
2. 'tropisms'
3. 'munificence'
4. 'obsequious'
5. 'vacuously'
and then he pulls out the big gun:
6. 'pulchritudinous' (!!)
MJ-S Unsplash.com
Wow. Drop that last bomb in any article and you just checkmated your opponent, pinned him to the mat, knocked him out with a fierce uppercut, blasted him with a word that astute readers of It Pays To Increase Your Word Power would not know the meaning of ninety nine times out of a hundred. Maybe nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a thousand.
So. The bar has been set. I've got some big words in my arsenal but..... ...should I use them? If I ever whip those babies out I might lose my audience for I want ordinary people to be able to relate to what I'm trying to convey. I don't want to floor them and have them running for either the dictonary or the exit, capiche? But, I must admit, after reading this guy's stuff, there is a temptation to throw biggies out there just to stay SOMEWHAT relevant.
I know- I'll 'float' a big 'un in an article every now and again. If I get any pushback I'll take a clue from the folks near the top and say "Heh heh! I was only joking!"
Word Key:
1. 'the quality of being open to bribery or overly motivated by money'
2. 'an orientation of an organism to an external stimulus, as light, especially by growth rather than by movement' (huh?)
3. 'the quality of being munificent, or showing unusual generosity'
4. 'characterized by or showing servile complaisance or deference; fawning'
5. 'expressing or characterized by a lack of ideas or intelligence'
6. 'physically beautiful, comely'
(bet you missed the last one! :)