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Dec. 8th, 2010 03:58 pmSo, I find myself dissatisfied with certain aspects of my vocabulary.
Some of these are because they're harmful language. I'm trying to avoid using bitch, cunt, lame, crazy, insane, gyp, and more recently, idiot and moron. (and I never did get much into retarded or gay). If nothing else, I see it as a challenge --I could use a word that I've been told is harmful, or I could be clever and come up with something much more interesting. And really now, is it anywhere near as satisfying to call someone a "lame ass-faggot1 bitch" as to casually inform them that they are "a thrice-cursed stain on the dirty socks of society"? Gets exactly the point across without using any marginalized groups as insults. Brilliant!
Starting sentences with conjunctions is one of my cardinal writing sins, and I've been working to fix that. Not well, unfortunately, but I've at least started noticing when I do it, and sometimes I even rewrite the relevant sentence.
While I highly endorse using the word fuck often and liberally (it just has such a great sound to it), even I must admit that it shows an occasional lack of creativity. Even more problematically is the fact that...well...I don't think sex should be seen as a swear! It's much too fun for that, which makes me loathe to associate a good act with whatever fuckery is going on today.
Of course, I've already mentioned in this journal that I way overuse the modifying adverb "really really", sometimes with added symbology, such as *asterisks* or _underscores_. This does such a disservice to all the other wonderful modifiers in the world, like extremely, emphatically, excellently (not to mention the ones that start with the other 25 letters of the alphabet!), and, like my overuse of my favourite expletive, shows a lack of creativity that I simply refuse to associate myself with.
It's not a lack of creativity I fear, but lack of sophistication when I like, way slip into, the totally valley ways of talkin', or start droppin' letters like a proper South'ner. It wouldn't be such a flaw if I could keep it to my actual speech, but I think like I talk like I write, and all three can be affected by my most recent media inputs. So watching TrueBlood or the Walking Dead is all well and good, but man, does it ever make me start to drawl.
Combining my first and third points, you get my discomfort with any number of religious words --God, Jesus, Christ, and damn. "For cat's sake" is a phrase I stumbled across in a book recently, and I've taken an immediate liking to the wording, meaning I may very well start using it to fill the gap left by my discomfort from asking someone else's god to damn things. Cursed serves nicely as a substitute for damn as well, but I've been a blasphemous little thing for a very long time, so fixing my ways may take some time indeed.
(Additionally, I do tend to use Athe or Mama when I need to swear by a god --better to use my own than anyone else's, if mine have trouble with my irreverence, they can take it up with me, and I can make proper reparations.)
Going off the theme of adding things to my vocabulary rather than subtracting them, you come across my insistence that I should be using the dictionary built into Vera *far* more often than I actually do. I've been trying to make a point of it lately --when my mind wishes to use a word that I am not quite sure of the proper definition, too often I'll substitute something safer, and generally less interesting. Having a one click dictionary absolutely saves me from the conundrum, and I've been doing my best to, when confronted with a word I am only seventy percent sure I'm using correctly or so, I take the time to look it up. More often than not, I was right.
I was recently told, in no uncertain terms, that I was no longer to use the sentence structure of "I am" followed by a negative. I do things, or occasionally do not do things, and sometimes those are bad things and make me feel bad, but they don't make me a bad person. This is an amazingly tricky habit to unlearn --I've spent a long time reinforcing the fact that while I am a pretty awesome person, I also tend to behave in the fashion of an absolute buffoon, most especially where my academic career is concerned.
I don't expect I'm doing a particularly good job of the challenge, but the right-thinking parts of myself (which have too-little opportunity to speak up sometimes) consider it to absolutely be a thing for me to do. Words have power after all, and if I can steer my mind away from the concept that I am, inherently, a failure and towards the thought that perhaps sometimes I merely fail, I'm sure I'll wind up being happier all around.
That's about all I can think of off the top of my head, at least for this particular instant of my life. Because my core idea of myself is so tied into the concept of being a writer, and because I operate so deeply in words, the language and vocabulary I choose or do not choose to use is never all that far from my mind.
Adieu, mein leibchen.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: xkcd stopped me using adjectve-ass noun forever. I still use it sometimes, but I do so consciously, and always in the adjective ass-noun form.
Some of these are because they're harmful language. I'm trying to avoid using bitch, cunt, lame, crazy, insane, gyp, and more recently, idiot and moron. (and I never did get much into retarded or gay). If nothing else, I see it as a challenge --I could use a word that I've been told is harmful, or I could be clever and come up with something much more interesting. And really now, is it anywhere near as satisfying to call someone a "lame ass-faggot1 bitch" as to casually inform them that they are "a thrice-cursed stain on the dirty socks of society"? Gets exactly the point across without using any marginalized groups as insults. Brilliant!
Starting sentences with conjunctions is one of my cardinal writing sins, and I've been working to fix that. Not well, unfortunately, but I've at least started noticing when I do it, and sometimes I even rewrite the relevant sentence.
While I highly endorse using the word fuck often and liberally (it just has such a great sound to it), even I must admit that it shows an occasional lack of creativity. Even more problematically is the fact that...well...I don't think sex should be seen as a swear! It's much too fun for that, which makes me loathe to associate a good act with whatever fuckery is going on today.
Of course, I've already mentioned in this journal that I way overuse the modifying adverb "really really", sometimes with added symbology, such as *asterisks* or _underscores_. This does such a disservice to all the other wonderful modifiers in the world, like extremely, emphatically, excellently (not to mention the ones that start with the other 25 letters of the alphabet!), and, like my overuse of my favourite expletive, shows a lack of creativity that I simply refuse to associate myself with.
It's not a lack of creativity I fear, but lack of sophistication when I like, way slip into, the totally valley ways of talkin', or start droppin' letters like a proper South'ner. It wouldn't be such a flaw if I could keep it to my actual speech, but I think like I talk like I write, and all three can be affected by my most recent media inputs. So watching TrueBlood or the Walking Dead is all well and good, but man, does it ever make me start to drawl.
Combining my first and third points, you get my discomfort with any number of religious words --God, Jesus, Christ, and damn. "For cat's sake" is a phrase I stumbled across in a book recently, and I've taken an immediate liking to the wording, meaning I may very well start using it to fill the gap left by my discomfort from asking someone else's god to damn things. Cursed serves nicely as a substitute for damn as well, but I've been a blasphemous little thing for a very long time, so fixing my ways may take some time indeed.
(Additionally, I do tend to use Athe or Mama when I need to swear by a god --better to use my own than anyone else's, if mine have trouble with my irreverence, they can take it up with me, and I can make proper reparations.)
Going off the theme of adding things to my vocabulary rather than subtracting them, you come across my insistence that I should be using the dictionary built into Vera *far* more often than I actually do. I've been trying to make a point of it lately --when my mind wishes to use a word that I am not quite sure of the proper definition, too often I'll substitute something safer, and generally less interesting. Having a one click dictionary absolutely saves me from the conundrum, and I've been doing my best to, when confronted with a word I am only seventy percent sure I'm using correctly or so, I take the time to look it up. More often than not, I was right.
I was recently told, in no uncertain terms, that I was no longer to use the sentence structure of "I am" followed by a negative. I do things, or occasionally do not do things, and sometimes those are bad things and make me feel bad, but they don't make me a bad person. This is an amazingly tricky habit to unlearn --I've spent a long time reinforcing the fact that while I am a pretty awesome person, I also tend to behave in the fashion of an absolute buffoon, most especially where my academic career is concerned.
I don't expect I'm doing a particularly good job of the challenge, but the right-thinking parts of myself (which have too-little opportunity to speak up sometimes) consider it to absolutely be a thing for me to do. Words have power after all, and if I can steer my mind away from the concept that I am, inherently, a failure and towards the thought that perhaps sometimes I merely fail, I'm sure I'll wind up being happier all around.
That's about all I can think of off the top of my head, at least for this particular instant of my life. Because my core idea of myself is so tied into the concept of being a writer, and because I operate so deeply in words, the language and vocabulary I choose or do not choose to use is never all that far from my mind.
Adieu, mein leibchen.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: xkcd stopped me using adjectve-ass noun forever. I still use it sometimes, but I do so consciously, and always in the adjective ass-noun form.