Dumb words

The English language is full of dumb words. I’m sure people have put time and thought into this already but I am going to do it again from my perspective. What makes a word dumb? Well there are the obvious ones to start with, words like Shoppe and Ye Olde. Words that try (too hard) to evoke a sentiment, that might have even worked when it was first used, but has since been so grimly overused as to slide into the “oh my GOD” category, as my almost-teen might say. Say that brings up another word, “tween”, a word that makes my teeth hurt when I hear it. In fact, when I start to think about it, many of the so-called ‘dumb words’ have come into being because of the needs of mass media/advertising to have a quick and easy way to describe or evoke something.

I remember when I was a girl in Toronto one of my classmates' father came up with an invention, it was something in which to put ones drink while on the boat, that would hang off a table and keep the drink secure. He called his invention - ever so wittily - a hangover. Ha, one might say. I often wondered what happened to those much-vaunted 'hangovers'? Were they a success? It was such a north Toronto sort of thing.

I digress. But as someone who subscribes to the Visual Thesaurus, and goes and puts words into their word map just for fun; who gets the OED out to find a word and finds 20 other ones along the way I think this dumbing down of the English Language must STOP. We have so many wonderful words and wonderful ways of saying things. We should all aspire to being sprachgefühl people, or those who enjoy the way language feels. That way Dunkin Donuts would be out of business, or Krispy Kreme's would be illegal!

Join me in my quest for wonderful inventive creative inspiring language, that makes my day light up.