Verbal Vitriol

Recently I was lambasted by a friend that I use too many big words. I know that I have a tendency towards the verbose, and I am not intentionally attempting to make anyone feel stupid, but I speak without assuming anyone IS stupid. I refuse to speak down to people, and my verbiage (my meaning being that of the second definition) is simply the fact that I consider you to be my equal.

Definition of VERBIAGE

1

: a profusion of words usually of little or obscurecontentverbiage as a typical party platform — Marcia Davenport>

2

: manner of expressing oneself in words : diction

Fine, I use words like egregious, tertiary, colloquial, and often times use nouns as verbs and vice versa. I grew up in a household where words had power. Books ruled the day, and by night they created a different world to explore. I read the dictionary as a child, studied Philology, and quested to find the beauty in words, and I have succeeded. Many of my paintings, prints and drawings make use of both the written word and an allusion to words and phrases within the title of the work.

There is such beauty in the written and spoken word, yet too few exploit it in a fashion worthy of note. April Katz is a wonderful artist working in the field of printmaking. In an homage to her mother, who was an inveterate note, diary and calendar keeper, she began reproducing her mothers written daily words as intaglio prints. They were both difficult to look at, and excruciatingly beautiful. The intimacy of sharing her mothers daily and weekly rituals, by words made into art, is both a lovely reminder of the woman her mother was, as well as a poignant and everlasting memorial to the woman April IS, courtesy of her mother.

I wish that more people would make the attempt to use words to make sentences of beauty. I am not advocating that people use words of which they have no knowledge of meaning, but that they learn to love words. With a love of words, the mind can grow and spring in directions that the reader or listener may not have intended to travel. This is a simple quote, one that holds a multitude of meanings and interpretations, and the simple turn of phrase is wondrous to me.

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
Walt Whitman

Think about it..... and buy a dictionary with a thesaurus