Wordgasm

A misunderstanding of the word ‘synecdoche’ got me very excited this week. I thought I was going to be able to use it as the beginning of my blog. I’ve only ever seen Charlie Kauffman and Stephen Fry use it in actual sentences up until now, which was pretty good company to be in. Unfortunately, when I looked it up, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, it did not mean what it was that I thought that it meant.

I was trying to find the word or phrase that defines a sentence which proves its own point. The example I was going use was “I can’t make up my mind if I’m indecisive or not.” The closest I can get to a label for such a statement is a Liar’s Paradox. It’s not quite that but its close (‘this statement is false’ of course being the ultimate Liars Paradox.)

I get excited when I get to use words that aren’t necessarily the norm. I guess this makes me a bit of a lexicon loser but so be it. I find vocabulary exhilarating. Some of it may be to do with the unwarranted superiority complex I sometimes get. Being in ‘the know’ when others are reaching for the dictionary kind of turns me on.

An Irish comedian called Michael Mee used to quip about telling knock knock jokes to Bedouins. This didn’t always work because a lot of people didn’t know what a Bedouin is. I used to get a warm sense of smugness as I laughed know I was just that little bit cleverer than the rest of the room.

Obviously the title of this blog isn’t an actual legitimate word but there is a great sense of satisfaction in crafting new words which have a clear meaning. Vocabularic is another favourite made up term of mine which I use to describe my worditude.

It’s not the world’s greatest superpower in fairness. It’s never helped attract the girls or rescue someone from a burning building. But it puts a smile on my face and my geekiest ambition is to one day coin a phrase that enters the Oxford English Dictionary.

Thanks for reading my words.

Did you see what I did there?

Loquacious

I do like words, which for someone with my vocation is a good thing. There can’t be too many writers who have an aversion to a decent sized lexicon. Although I did hear there was a three syllable minimum in P.S. I Love You. (This is not true. I’ve never read any Celia Aherne and I am just a jealous bitter hack.)

Words are definitely one of my favourite things and the process of learning a new is exhilarating. The moment you hear a word and it you just have to know what it means. You look it up in the dictionary and its definition is just as cool as its sound so you commit it to memory until the first opportunity you get to drop it, either in a written piece or in conversation. It’s almost as good as some fairly average sex.

Unfortunately, a side effect of my love of language is a tendency to use it too much. I talk at inopportune times, sometimes getting so excited that it can seem quite rude if you are already talking. Especially if it’s something funny, I have to say it out loud immediately because it might not have the same impact if it’s not said at that precise moment.

It’s also been known for to head down a cul de sac of chat throwing out excessively flamboyant vernacular for the sake of it. I blame programmes like Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson’s Creek for that. The verbose adult posing as an adolescent always got the girl in those programmes. Of course if I’d have known Katie Holmes was going to end up marrying Tom Cruise I probably would have stuck monosyllabic grunts.

Then there is the text messaging. I text way too much as my first real phone bill in eight years will attest to. Having worked for mobile phone companies since the early days of this century I was fortunate enough to get free or subsidise text and calls. Then when I left I got a pay as you go package which when you topped up twenty euro a month gave you unlimited free text. So to me it made a lot of sense to take full advantage of the offer.

A message from my provider on the one year anniversary of my pre paid usage informed me that I had sent, over the course of the year, the equivalent of twenty five free text messages a day. When I did switch back to bill pay I went over my allocation of 200 any network and 200 same network texts by twenty euro. That is a ridiculous amount of SMS for a grown up. So you’re probably asking yourself why or how?

One train of thought is that I work better in the written format. In fairness I’ve had enough practice. What some (ok, I) might classify as wit or charm come across better in text. When I speak my voice can go funny and there is no back space, so when I say something and it sounds cheesy and cornball it’s out there. No delete or recall.

But that’s not real; it’s like rehearsing for life. And there are no rehearsals as a really bad director once said. So from here on I promise to not text so much. I’ll pick up the phone and call when I want to communicate with you. You deserve it....and it makes more sense financially. It might also cut down on the amount of accidental flirting that I do. But that’s a collection of words for a different day.