Words. Our days are filled with them. Everything we encounter requires that we use words. Okay, not everything, but we still use words to describe those things that don’t require us to speak or write. Confused? Awesome.

My parents loved words. As a Methodist minister, Dad prepared a twenty-minute sermon every week. Twenty minutes of using words to encourage and teach. He read and studied in preparation, and he read for pleasure. Mom loved reading and writing, studying, learning. She had one of the largest vocabularies of anyone I’ve ever met. And she knew how to use her words.

She was convinced to run for the school board in Sigourney in the 1970s. A job normally performed by men in the community, she was nervous. But one other woman had already been elected, so Mom agreed. She was so stinking excited on election day to pull the lever beside her name. But once she got on the board, she discovered that just because she’d been elected didn’t mean those men would respect her.

She wasn’t having it. Mom was married to a strong leader in the community, one who respected men and women alike and recognized her brilliance and leadership. These men? She was about to take them out. Every month she over-prepared for the meetings and when they attempted to shut her, her opinions, or suggestions up, Mom respectfully unleashed her out-sized vocabulary on them, effectively closing them down until she was able to finish her thoughts. She was not a woman to be taken lightly.

I remember one of the first big words she made sure we knew. She loved it. Sesquipedalianist – lover of long words. In seminary, I took Greek and Hebrew, you know, like you do. Now, I’m not a linguist by any stretch, but I learned to tear into words – rip them apart. If you dig into the word sesquipedalian, you find that it’s Latin – sesquipedalis – a foot and a half long. Sesquis – one and a half times as great + pedalis – foot.

One of the greatest joys I took from learning Greek and Hebrew was how to dig into the Etymology or the history of a word. You see that concept show up in the Bellingwood books because I believe it’s important for us to understand the beauty of words – not just their definitions. There are many underlying stories behind words and phrases. We often get so caught up in the technicalities of grammar and language that we lose sight of their beauty. That whole forest and trees analogy.

Earlier this week I asked for some of your favorite words, for words you’ve had difficulty with, for words you had to relearn as an adult. The biggest thing people wanted to talk about was how others mistype, mispronounce, misuse words.

What’s so interesting is that until the explosion of Facebook and Twitter, we interacted with friends and family using speech. We talked to each other in person or on the telephone. And speech patterns often ignore standard grammatical patterns. Vocalized speech is also easily forgotten. As soon as we’ve finished the conversation, people rarely remember word usage, proper grammar, heck, they barely remember what we said. No one thinks about conjunctions, commas, prepositional phrases, run-on sentences or spelling the word there when we speak.

Suddenly, grammar police everywhere came to life when their friends, who hadn’t been in an English class for twenty years and had likely been more interested in a boy or girl than whatever was on the blackboard, had to write something to make themselves clear. Rather than looking for the intent of a sentence, grammar and spelling became the focus, not communication.

When I was young, I had penpals around the world. It never once occurred to me to judge their written words. The only thing I wanted to do was take whatever I could from their letter, share it with my family, and write a letter back so we could continue the conversation. Nowadays, everything but the intent of the writer becomes important. Grammar, spelling, some random bit of information that triggers a thought. And we’re off the rails.

One comment in this week’s post was about bullying based on language arts skills. This is real. There are readers who didn’t participate in that post this week because they’re afraid of judgment. And guess what – they were proved right. With every judgmental comment, they knew for sure they’d be judged, too. I had a close friend, who, when we first connected on Facebook told me she was terrified of commenting on my posts, or sending emails, even letting me see her posts. She knew my background and we’d never done any type of written communication before. Would I judge her and think less of her because her education was different than mine? No. You’re safe with me. That’s all I want anyone to know.

I want to pick up a couple of words that were dropped in the post from earlier this week. And I’m not picking on you – just using the examples.

Youse. Youse is a plural usage of You. Just like y’all. It was popular during the early 1900s and has held on. So, the two of youse or the rest of youse. Though it’s a colloquialism, it’s a real word.

Let me define colloquialism – a word or phrase, not used in formal language, but one used in informal conversation. That’s the point. Conversation. Right?

Jerry-rigged vs. Jury-rigged. Believe it or not, Jerry-rigged originated before 1900. It evolved from the word Jerry-built. It has nothing to do with German engineering during World War II. The word is older than that. This is why I love etymology – the study of words. Jury-rigged has nothing to do with the judicial system. It’s a nautical term – comes from Middle English – jory. Middle English was the language spoken and used just prior to the Renaissance – 1066 to late 1400s. A Jory sail was an improvised sail … on a ship. So, jury-rigged is improvised rigging on a sailing ship.

Jerry-built was something built cheaply to not last long. Merriam-Webster says that this word sidled up to jury-rigged in the late 19th century and jerry-rigged came into being. It’s a recognized word.

Another word that sends people up the wall is irregardless. While it is nonstandard, its definition is … regardless. The word has been around since 1795. Merriam-Webster figures its origins come from blending the two words irrespective and regardless. Regardless, it’s right there and we can hate it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a real word.

The Grammar Girl posted yesterday about the word gifting. It annoys people. I might be part of that group. For me, gift is a noun, not a verb. Unless, of course, I’m wrong. In truth, gift has been a verb for over 400 years, though it fell out of common use except in Scotland. The gift tax in 1930 brought it back, but when it really returned to our vocabulary was when Elaine came up with the term re-gifting in a Seinfeld episode. I still don’t like it, but that’s my problem, not anyone else’s. Right?

I grew up with a father who had a serious hearing problem until he was in his thirties. He was partially deaf in both ears and didn’t hear things correctly. They thought he was slow-witted until his second-grade teacher realized that if she moved him to the front of the classroom, he heard her instructions. Because he’d misheard words, pronunciation was difficult. He practiced his sermons like crazy and often asked Mom for help. He told a story of submitting a paper in college. In it, he continually used the phrase – taking it for granite. That was how he’d heard it, and no one caught his mistake when he used the phrase out loud. But the professor handed the paper back with red marks slashed through his error. Dad was mortified. But in reality, it was understandable.

We spent many years working with poverty-stricken areas in the hollers (hollows of the mountains) of Kentucky. I learned another deep lesson in language during those years. In one holler where we spent an entire summer, I grew to know the people well and care for them. But their accent was off the charts. I had to work to understand them. They sounded backward and stupid – according to my Midwestern ear. But then, Mom explained their heritage. They’d emigrated from Scotland and because they were so isolated, while they took in American terms and heard the slower Southern accent, their speech patterns had transformed into a hodge podge. Very unique to them. Very odd to me.

Pronunciations of words like: warsh, idear, crick or creek, roof or roof, route or route all come about because of regional dialects. How about lawyer or lawyer, pecahn or pe-can, been or been, boo-ie or bowie knife. Television has also influenced how generations speak. Pronunciations come from other languages as immigrants blend into society. In some cases, we accept them. In others, we see them as lowering a person’s intellectual quotient.

If you hear someone say they’re going to pahk the cah, not for a second would you believe they were dumb. But if someone says they’re going warsh the car, suddenly, because they’re not from Boston, but somewhere else, its unacceptable. This is a regional pronunciation that takes in a huge span of the eastern US. And just because you’re from one of those states and don’t use that pronunciation, means nothing. It likely means you’ve watched more television. It’s a regional pronunciation, not an indicator of intelligence.

Media uses what’s called “General American English.” It is not the accent of the entire nation and it is not a homogeneous standard. Linda Ellerbee once said, that in television you are not supposed to sound like you’re from anywhere. We’re all from somewhere.

When it comes to pronunciation, one thing I learned when taking Greek was how the accent – this time I mean the emphasis of a syllable – moved backward from the end of the word based on specific rules. I still don’t do it right. In fact, I crack myself up every time I try to say a very Greek word – well, a city name. That city where the 300 Spartans laid down their lives in the war against the Persians.

If I tell you that it is Thermo ply – you’ll screw up your face and try to figure out exactly what I’m saying. Then I’ll see your face and correct myself to Thermopylae. It’s a terrible thing. And you’d think I’d get it.

My mother messed me up bad. She loved twisting words on purpose. But sometimes she didn’t tell us as children that’s what she was doing. Have you ever seen a horned rhino with a flaming red behind? Mom’s twist was “rhino-sore-ass.” If you start that word with the accent on the first syllable, like I grew up doing? You’re sunk before you get any further. The accent should land on the second syllable. Rhin-o – Rhin – o’ – saurus.

Now, I know you all have your own stories of twisted words and other verbal hilarities. Those are the things that make words fun.

Shakespeare was a master of creating words. It’s hard these days as an author to make up a word. We are harangued and corrected if something doesn’t fit into a standard dictionary. Imagine the trouble Shakespeare had when creating words like bandit, critic, dauntless, dwindle, elbow, lonely, lackluster, swagger, uncomfortable, unearthly, unreal, undress. Words that are familiar to us and used every day, were new to his audiences.

Another story about my mother abandoning me to the language wolves. Twelve years ago, or so, I worked at a Methodist Church in Omaha as their communications director. My office mate was a bright young man who took care of the tech. One day I was moaning about how something wasn’t working, and I couldn’t go any further. I told him that I was stall-foundered. He looked at me in confusion and asked, “What was that word?”

Stall foundered.

“Diane, that’s not a word.”

“Sure it is.” Both of us tore to the internet to look it up. Mom had done it to me again. I’d used that word my entire life. You can tell what it means. I was stopped … foundered … stalled.

As an author, I know my responsibility is to keep grammar, spelling, and word usage as clean as possible. I make mistakes, and I’ve put systems in place to correct them. And I still miss things. Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series, once replied to a reader who taunted him with finding a mistake in a book by saying, “I wrote 100,000 words and you found one that was an error. Congratulations. I hope you enjoyed the rest of the words.”

Now, I correct my siblings in their spellings, but you know what? I have permission and if I mess something up, they’re permitted to correct me. It’s part of the life we’ve lived together in a family where words are a big deal. I tell you this, because well, it’s only been a few days since the last time I corrected someone’s spelling. But I will never, ever do it to anyone else. The conversation is what’s important. The connection. The shared story.

So, the moral of today’s talk is that “When you choose a high horse to climb up on, don’t forget, there is always someone ready to come along with a bigger horse and a taller saddle.” That kind of applies to any high horse you want to climb up on and wave your judgment stick.

And we return to last week’s words – Respond with grace. If you see or hear an error in language usage from a friend or family member, is your response grace-filled or judgmental? Often, it isn’t about their error, but your heart. Did they take joy in the words they shared only to be shut down by your correction? Or did you miss the point of their words because you focused on the error. That’s on you. Unless of course, they’re a professional writer.

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Beginning tomorrow, I will post the transcripts to my past Facebook Livesteams onto my website along with a link to the FB video. There have been several of these, so it will take a few days to get them all out there. For a girl who likes to have folders in cabinets and everything well-labeled, organized, alphabetized, and in one place – the internet is a frustrating mass of information. My digital life was supposed to help me easily find things. Now, it’s spread out everywhere. AND, I’m being told I should be on Instagram as well.

That frightens me. I had an account on Instagram that I allowed to languish. When I returned to reinvigorate it, I discovered it had been hacked and was now home to thousands of hookers and other pretty girls from around the world who were gathering followers to themselves in frightening numbers. I changed the password. But getting rid of those people was an overwhelming task, so I killed the account instead. I haven’t had the courage to go back.

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Summer is here, school is out, life is different, yet it is still … life. I follow Tim Cotton on the Bangor Maine Police Department page. If you don’t, you should. He is amazing. And I just discovered that he’s a preacher’s kid. His sign-off slogan for his posts there comes from his grandmother – Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people’s things alone, and be kind to one another. That’s perfection.

Mine isn’t nearly as clever. Be generous with your good words this week. Share kindness and love. Avoid judgment. Respond with grace. Be careful that what you say and write creates a connection and encourages conversation. The conversation is more important than any rules.

I’m nearly finished writing Book 30. The story upended itself last night. For the better, I’m sure, but this will make me scramble. That’s always a good thing. A week from tomorrow is the next newsletter with the title and cover reveal and another vignette. You can sign up for the newsletter on my website at nammynools.com.

I love you all and I’ll be back next week.

https://www.facebook.com/bangormainepolice/
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/15-words-invented-by-shakespeare/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/is-gifting-a-word
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/jerry-built-vs-jury-rigged-vs-jerry-rigged-usage-history