friends and language

My bestest buddy, other than Jesus and my husband, is a very quick-witted, motorcycle-riding, harness boot-wearing, public school teacher and mother to an adorable baby boy, whom I call “my baby.” (You know who you are.)  She is so cool.  There’s a lot I could say about her, extolling her virtues, but really, the virtue people comment on the most is her humor.  

She makes everyone laugh.  She is really good at one liners and always has something funny to say that exactly fits the circumstance.  She says she doesn’t have a very good memory, but I think it’s because her brain is full of all the jokes she’s saving for just the right moment.  

Anyway, my dear friend often says, “Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice.”  I guess it’s a paraphrase of something by someone named William Safire (google, baby):  ”It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.”  Mark Twain expressed similar thoughts in a speech in favor of simplified spelling, “I never write metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.”

I recently came upon a different point of view regarding use of the English language.  I must tip my hat to Cindy of, now mostly dormant, Dominion Family for this article, which does not specifically address the issue of long words, but rather the related subject of long sentences.

Because of this article, I’ve been practicing long sentences in my writing, speaking and thinking for the past day or so and it has actually helped me in some interesting ways:  I am able to get rid of many the parentheses I had been using far too frequently and I find myself thinking complex thoughts with greater ease.  Go figure.