The hosts discuss Ammon Shea’s recent New York Times Magazine column about whether a large vocabulary filled with obscure and unusual words is all that necessary. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Large, Obscure Vocabulary”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Does having a big vocabulary really help you get ahead in life?
And I’m not talking about just being able to speak and write well and write with ease.
I mean having a big vocabulary in the sense of knowing really obscure words for specific things.
Like knowing that the word catalate means to lick dishes.
Or that brocety means having crooked teeth.
Does using words like that really help you get ahead in life, or does it just brand you as a weird or downright insufferable person?
Oh, I know what you’ve been reading.
The dictionary, of course.
Exactly.
But you’ve also been reading the article by Ammon Shea in the New York Times magazine where he talked about vocabulary size.
You’re right.
You’re right.
Does vocabulary size matter?
It’s a really good question.
He points out, rightfully so, that the earliest dictionaries were often released for people who wanted to make themselves sound smarter.
They weren’t necessarily about defining all of the language, but so much as they were giving you the language that would present well in the drawing room or in the salons of the day or that sort of thing.
And he also says that most famous quotations that you can think of don’t rely on polysyllabic Latinisms.
He says Winston Churchill’s oft-repeated statement about how he had nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat would have elicited nothing but puzzlement had he replaced that quartet of short nouns with the synonyms vermal, moiling, delacrimation, and sedorification.
So the question is, are you a size queen, right, when it comes to vocabulary?
Well, I am, but…
I’m not. No. The thing is, there’s something to be said here for the simple word works best.
On the other hand, I love the fact that English is so rich with synonyms.
It’s one of the benefits of the language is that the subtle differences between these words means that you can sometimes get so precise that you couldn’t say it any other way.
Exactly, Grant.
I agree with that.
I mean, it’s sort of like coming across something that Shakespeare says or even a comedian, you know, when they spot something and call attention to it.
Hey, did you ever notice how this or that happens?
There’s something about coming across a word that tells you that somebody noticed something and they just made you notice it too.
I mean, like the word groak he mentions in the article, G-R-O-A-K, which means to stare silently at someone while they eat, perhaps in the hope of being given some food.
I mean, my dogs groak all the time.
As soon as you see the definition of that word, you know that moment.
You know that feeling.
And there’s something kind of thrilling about knowing that somebody’s been there before you.
That’s true.
And I think the strange words that we know sometimes have their own message because they are strange.
If I choose to use the word absquatulate instead of to scram or to flee, then you know that I’m speaking in a different register of English and that there’s some other extra information being carried there.
Right, right.
So I love them all.
Of course, dropping them into conversation is another matter entirely.
I don’t think you necessarily have to do that.
Do you have an opinion?
Does vocabulary matter?
Do you need more words?
Will 15,000 do or 75,000 or 150,000?
Let us know.
