This brief rant was inspired by a passing conversation on Xbox LIVE the other night. I was playing with a friend, and after we won a game, one of the poorer performing players on our team grumbled, "God, I suck. I'm such a [guy who is bad at stuff]." My friend replied, "How exactly does one overcome being a [guy who is bad at stuff]?" To which our compatriot replied, "How does one TALK like that? Are you kidding me with that word? [trails off into vulgarity]" It occurred to us that this fool was taken aback by our usage of a fairly common 8-letter word: "overcome." Ye gads!

Now, this is a fairly extreme example, granted, but it really reaffirmed for me that my love of employing a diverse vocabulary in my daily discourse is not exactly in line with the majority. This saddens me, because the English language is so vast and full of wonderful expressive words that it's a shame people don't use them more.

You should use big words! Small words! Words that sound pretentious! Words that sound fake! It'll make you sound smarter because you'll be embracing your own smarts! People may give you funny looks or react oddly, but who cares? Not to mention the myriad benefits, academic and professional. I applaud all of you who endeavor to speak and write in such ways, and I encourage you all to try to work a broader vocabulary into your daily lives.

Example: I recently used the word "mulct" in a game of Scrabble, much to the chagrin of Shaun McInnis. He mocked me, doubted me, slandered me, etc. But then, as part of the running joke, we both ended up using the word a few times over the next few days. Learning through friendly banter! Now we'll both probably remember that mulct means swindle, short-change, or extort for a good long while.

Got a good word? Comment!