To many Americans, big words are an affront. People who use fancy words are trying to show us up, flaunting their education and intelligence, rubbing our noses in our own shortcomings.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true there are people who use their vocabularies to intimidate. It\u2019s a shabby tactic, and it\u2019s sad how effective it can be. Many a faulty argument has been won by the side with the glib, silver-tongued wordsmith.<\/p>\n
Still, a highly developed society needs big words. Most multisyllabic words combine two or more smaller words to express complex ideas that come about as a culture copes with the world\u2019s intricacy, uncertainty, and inscrutability.<\/p>\n
In the end, big words take up far less space than repeatedly articulating the complicated concepts they represent. Not so long ago, paranoid<\/em> was an exotic word that only intellectuals used. (It\u2019s from the Greek para<\/em>: \u201camiss, incorrect\u201d + nous<\/em>: \u201cmind.\u201d) Nowadays even seventh-graders use paranoid<\/em>. The culture needed a word that could sum up, in a few pithy syllables, \u201chaving an irrational belief that you\u2019re being persecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n So below are several big words that, like paranoid<\/em>, might come in handy in certain situations. The problem is how to get them into general usage. If you take a shine to any of these words, try slipping one in around friends who wouldn\u2019t hate you for it and might even ask you what it means.<\/p>\n Pareidolia\u00a0<\/strong> You know how every so often you read about people who see Jesus Christ in a tree trunk? Or some woman in Ohio who keeps a swirl of moldy Cheez Whiz in a vault because she sees the visage of Elvis? That\u2019s pareidolia<\/em>: the phenomenon of finding the familiar in an improbable place.<\/p>\n Misology\u00a0<\/strong> This is a word for our times. It means hatred of reason, logic, enlightenment. People who oppose higher learning and progress used to be dismissed as fools. Now a potential voter\u2019s misology <\/em>is something many politicians pander to.<\/p>\n Sesquipedalian\u00a0<\/strong> This really long adjective means \u201creally long.\u201d It was coined to describe big words, so it is what it means. It can also refer to someone who uses words that are really long, maybe too long.<\/p>\n Billingsgate\u00a0<\/strong> Foul or abusive language. It derives from a rowdy fish market in seventeenth century London. It\u2019s innocuous-sounding and obscure enough to work to your advantage if you\u2019re ever sitting with your family near a foul-mouthed sot who won\u2019t shut up. \u201cPlease, dude, go easy on the billingsgate, huh?\u201d OK, that probably wouldn\u2019t work, but you tried, and let\u2019s hope it sounded mild enough to avoid a drubbing.<\/p>\n Prelapsarian\u00a0<\/strong> If you describe a garden as prelapsarian<\/em>, you\u2019re praising its unspoiled loveliness, not criticizing it for being dated or out of fashion. We get this word from theology. It\u2019s meant to evoke the state of innocence before the Fall of Man.<\/p>\n Paraprosdokian\u00a0<\/strong> One or more sentences that end in an unexpected way. Here\u2019s a fine example: \u201cThe car stopped on a dime\u2014which unfortunately was in a pedestrian\u2019s pocket.\u201d Bet you never saw that coming. (Neither did the pedestrian.)<\/p>\n Orthoepy\u00a0<\/strong> It\u2019s supposed to be or-THO-a-pee, and by telling you that, I sort of defined the word: it\u2019s the study of proper pronunciation.<\/p>\n Callipygian\u00a0<\/strong> Here\u2019s a strikingly euphonious alternative to leering-frat-boy language. It means \u201chaving shapely buttocks.\u201d I think I prefer it to badonkadonk<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2014Tom Stern<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To many Americans, big words are an affront. People who use fancy words are trying to show us up, flaunting their education and intelligence, rubbing our noses in our own shortcomings. It\u2019s true there are people who use their vocabularies to intimidate. It\u2019s a shabby tactic, and it\u2019s sad how effective it can be. Many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions","category-vocabulary"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}