Various sources claim that people typically use about five thousand different words in their speech and about twice that many in their writing.
That means, then, that there is a lot of repetition, does it not? Words, words, words!
No, but words are important, interesting, insightful, instructive. We should be grateful for words! What is the problem with using lots of words?
The short answer is obviously, “Nothing! There is nothing wrong with using words”.
There are, however, a few caveats (now there is a good word!), a few qualifications that might need to be made.
Firstly, we cannot just use any old random word, just for the sake of using words.
For example, we could rattle off toothiest, evinced, preendeavour, hairtail, eagrus, savants, circumjacence, chafferer, substantivise but while they have individual meaning (and are, let us be honest, pretty intellectual) they make no sense just being thrown down on the page.
Words on their own are not enough.
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We should note too that we cannot use any old word but equally we should not use many words; after all, the word ‘more’ does not necessarily mean ‘better’.
Much wit and wisdom might be lost in a cloud of woolly words.
Sometimes we may think that the more words we use the more erudite (add that to the list of good words), clever, insightful we are but if the words we are using are rubbish (aka garbage, debri, litter, waste, junk, drivel, twaddle, claptrap, hogwash) then it will not impress anyone.
Furthermore, we cannot really use made-up words whenever we feel like it.
Some may be reasonable, like one used to describe a difficult golf shot as ‘crucical’ as we can work out the meaning (being a mixture of ‘crucial’ and ‘critical’, for emphasis), but then consider the opening sentence from ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll: “Twas brillig and the slighty toves did gyre and gimble in the wade; all mimsy were the borogoves and the mome raths outgrabe”. What on earth is all that about?
In addition, we should note that we cannot use incorrectly spelt words.
It is true that we do not like spelling and that the English language is crazy the way it spells words (“the plural of ox is oxen but the plural of box is …”) – yes, we know!
There is a big difference though between porpoise and tortoise even though the spelling is close.
We need to spell it correctly or the meaning might be strange. Spelling is important.
Finally, we have to be careful how we use those words.
A recent email stated, “we have a lovely school and it will be an honour for you to be with us.”
That may have been true but the writer actually meant that it would be an honour for the school having the parent visit them – it was a case of right words, wrong order, different meaning. Close but not close enough.
Apart from making this sound like another boring English grammar lesson (once a teacher, always…), where are we going with all this?
Quite simply, our lives are like sentences (life sentences, therefore) and our days, our work, our actions are like the words we put in a sentence.
So, the points made above about words apply equally to our children’s lives.
They must learn that they cannot just do any old thing with their lives, filling them with whatever comes into their head, with no connection.
Random unconnected actions, like words, are meaningless.
So too they cannot just fill their lives with many things, thinking that the busier they are the more they will do, the more useful they will be, the more impressed others will be.
They cannot fill their lives with made-up things, just doing whatever they fancy, expecting others to understand and accept.
They must be careful about the things they do so as not to do the wrong thing. If they are not careful, they will not have a porpoise – sorry, they will not have purpose.
Lastly, the only way they can make sense of our lives is if they have order in them. They must have the right actions in their lives, in the right order, if there is to be any sense.
As we come to the end of this article, we may note that it has only used up 780 words, many of which are the same, so that may be one reason to be thankful – we have still some to spare!
We simply trust that they have meaning and are not a death sentence but rather a lifelong lesson bringing a life sentence.
There are many lessons here. And that is what education is about.
