RHYS BOWEN: Our society is losing many things: civility, culture, empathy but above all WORDS. The young generation communicates with texts. LOL WTF etc. During Covid my rather shy granddaughter was confined to her room and not doing well. I suggested she call some friends to chat. Nobody chats, Nana, she said.
I saw an interview on TV with a juvenile offender. When he spoke he sounded angry all the time and every third sentence was "Know what I mean? Know what I mean?" The problem was we didn't know what he meant because he lacked the words to express it.
My grandmother and great aunt had huge vocabularies. They spoke in complete sentences. They read extensively. Maybe the Victorian era was in some ways the high point of civilization. So many inventions, good literature, a relatively peaceful world. of course we won't mention colonial domination, awful slums, child labor... but I feel we have gone downhill from there. Two world wars, the rise of technology and, worst of all for us writers, the drop in reading. We are now writing for an elite few, most of them in the older generation. When they are gone will there be anyone else who wants to read as an escape?
My daughter teaches at a fabulous Montessori school, K-8. Their library is open during lunch hour and my daughter says it is always full of kids sprawled on couches and bean bags reading their favorite books. They also have a period every day called DEAR. Drop Everything And Read.
If only more schools were like that. But I feel we are all to blame. I notice my own vocabulary is limited these days. "Where did we put that thing? That whatsit? How are you? I'm good. Not I'm well, which is correct. I am trying to keep or recover some sort of vocabulary. I subscribe to something called Word Genius that sends me a new word every day. Some days I feel smug because I already know it. Other days it's like today:
No, I have never used that word in my life! I probably never will, but there are some words I think I know but I don't really. When John was saying that something was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard I commented that he should stop resorting to hyperbole. That felt good.
But I saw this list the other day. I think I know all of these words. Do you? And how do you think we can stop this horrible erosion of culture?
So who got a perfect score?
And do you have any suggestions about how we can improve our vocabularies and get kids to read? Harry Potter was amazing as it hooked a whole generation. Maybe we should stop writing for adults and write some more arresting children's lit.
I wish I did have an idea of how to get the kids to read, but, since phones and game apps seem to be here to stay, I am clueless . . . .
ReplyDeleteOne of my big worries, too, Rhys! Reader's Digest had a regular feature of interesting words, called Towards a More Colorful Language, if I remember correctly. They had other fun and educational features, as well.
ReplyDeleteI had at one time known absquatulate, but had forgotten that remarkable word. And four in the list are new to me. I'll have to share this with my stepsis here in England. She also loves words and language, in English, Latin, French and German.
Back when I worked for City of LA, we had forms we had to fill out for taking vacation, sick time, etc. If you were taking sick time, you had to check a box stating that you missed work due to an actual illness and not “moral turpitude.” I don’t know if many people knew what that phrase meant.
ReplyDeleteI lovingly seeing words, either in English or other languages, that perfectly describe something I would otherwise need a phrase for. It can tell you a lot about the culture, geography or weather. Like dreich for dull and gloomy weather in Scotland, or the Japanese word kuchisabishii for eating because your mouth is lonely.
Well, I had at least heard of 11 of the words in the list , not that I knew what they all meant.
ReplyDeleteThe Lemony Snicket books also have good vocabulary building words in them.
I read that even though the percentage of adults who read for pleasure is declining, the number of adults who read to their children is remaining steady. To me that means parents are not modeling that reading books is something adults do which might be contributing to the abandonment of reading as children get older. So the solution is not to substitute writing children’s books for writing for adults, but to promote reading for all. Some libraries do this by selecting a community reads book each year with companion YA and children’s books with the same or similar theme. I’ve also seen a rise in Summer Reading programs for all ages.
Brenda, adults modeling reading behavior--yes! My mom was an avid reader and my dad only read his daily newspaper. All of my sibs and I still love reading the newspaper (especially the print version!). Not all of us are avid readers, but the majority are.
DeleteI propose that libraries should not be allowed to remove from the shelves books that were written earlier on, and I don't mean because they are so called 'banned'. Language is fluid, and sentence structure moves on. The presentation of only current books does not allow us to learn the beauty of language. People do not speak in the same way in Dorothy Sayers, as the protagonists do in Lucy's books. Neither is better than the other, but I feel that we should have the ability to learn language from both.
DeleteThat is a very good point Margo.
DeletePut down the phones! Talk to your children!
ReplyDeleteSome of my favorite memories of kids and grandchildren are of me reading to them. A book I love to give to new parents is Richard Scarry's BIG WORD BOOK. It has pages of vocabulary, the name for everyday items throughout the house and in other places kids might go with a cute story.
ReplyDeleteI still learn vocabulary from reading. I knew most of the words on the list but rarely use them in speech. Your word of the day is a new one to me. If I said, "He absquatulated after one drink at the bar," what do you think people would imagine he did?
I would imagine a bad physical reaction.
DeleteOh, that reminds me. Old fashioned curses were frequently much more colorful and amusing. A Yiddish curse Irwin used to say, I think it was a favorite of his grandmother, "You should grow like an onion!" The first time he said it I said, "Huh?" "You know," he said, "with your head in the ground."
ReplyDelete"Hey, your mother wears combat boots." ( Now a compliment, no longer a curse.)
I love colorful old curses, Judy. And colorful phrases. My father had so many including ‘for donkey. ‘S years’. I never knew where that came from
DeleteI know 12 of the words...I have no idea how to get kids to read.
ReplyDeleteYes, I knew most of those words, except for 2. But that doesn't mean I would ever use these words in a conversation. Learning multiple languages (Japanese, English, French, German) certainly helped to expand my knowledge of words and vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteAre spelling bees still part of school curriculum? Word games such as Scrabble forced the players to use obscure words.
I play Scrabble against the computer but it cheats with such obscure words I could never know. !
DeleteRhys, I also lament the decline of vocabulary in the modern world. From your list of "advanced" words, 14 were already in my vocabulary. Malversation, Lepid and Hebetude were new to me.
ReplyDeleteAs to instilling a love of reading in children, I really, really hope that trend turns. As someone else mentioned already, when I was raising my son the time we spent reading together forms some of my very best memories -- and his, I believe. (In the interest of fairnes, along with time reading with his dad. My husband is a big non-fiction reader but not much on fiction, however he faithfully read aloud with our son almost every night through his childhood.)
In part I think the decay in reading among young people is a reflection of the decay in attention spans. Many young people (by which I mean under 40 or so) do not have the attention span to sit and read a novel for an hour or so at a time. I know my son, for example, rarely reads a book, but subscribes to a service where writers post a chapter at a time online for his reading pleasure in long, ongoing stories. As I understand it, one subscribes to particular stories for a very small monthly fee and the writers are compensated for their work by those reader subscriptions. I have no idea if this model is common.
We are going back to the serialized works of Charles Dickens!
DeleteJames S.A. Corey (writers of The Expanse series) are posting their new work chapter-by-chapter to their Patreon subscribers to give a look behind the curtain as a novel evolves.
When I retired, I had to train myself to read long works again. My brain was so used to being constantly interrupted that at first I struggled to focus. Happily, it is a skill that came back to me.
If anyone remembers Doc Martin, there is a lovely scene where he is reading to his son, who is a baby and who is snuggled in his armpit, from the Lancet. Talk about learning vocabulary!
DeleteYou can blame TV. Stories are presented in 90 second segments before the scene changes or we go to commercials. Also small kids are put in front of TVs with flashing bright fast moving cartoons
DeleteI too lament the drop in the number of people who read. It's such a great pleasure for me. There were three of the word list that I didn't know. I would have spelled rigmarole as rigamarole. Apparently either is correct.
ReplyDeleteI love the word rigmarole, but when I saw it listed I always pronounce it "rigamarole" too.
DeleteRigamarole rolls off the tongue.
I think Latin and Greek should be taught in school, in fact, should be mandatory.
As far as "I am well/I am good", I have to admit I do know the correct response is "I am well" but I find it a bit too formal for everyday conversation for some reason. I always respond, "I am good" primarily because it is asked as a casual question and I prefer a casual response. (Unless one is at the doctor's office!)
A lot to think about here, Rhys! Last year at my library's celebration, I was given a prize - I was their top borrower for that year! I was shocked that there weren't tons more people who read more than I did. But I think you are right that each generation is reading less. Less books, that is. I know that my mother read a lot more than I did, as did her mother before her, although it seemed that Grandma just read the same books over and over again. We'd go to the library and she was the only person taking out those old favorites of hers.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be good if more and better books were written for kids. Not that there is anything wrong with the new books out there, but we need more. When I hear about what sounds like a good picture book or YA novel I borrow just for my own pleasure. I recently read The Accidental Stowaway and wondered at the time if any kids would like it as much as I did.
As for your list of words, I knew most of them. Frequently when I am reading and come across an unknown word I immediately look it up on my cell phone. Often with Kindle the word can be highlighted and the definition given. I was so impressed when I first figured that out. Knowing what the word means as I am reading can sometimes make a big difference. Usually context clues help, but I want to be sure.
Language is a favourite thing to discuss here. Here are many thoughts in really random order.
ReplyDeleteBack when I wrote an editorial, I was very cognizant of not repeating the same word in a paragraph, but especially in the same sentence. The right click on the synonym button had a regular work-out. There I had to choose a word that not only reflected what I had to say, but was in the vocabulary of the readers. Language is usually only good if we speak so those around us can understand. I also think that substituting a word that may be unknown to the reader, should allow the reader to both learn the new word, while easily understanding its use in the passage. There is no sense in filling your prose with big words that only shows that you think you are superior in your use of words to anyone else – shades of Margaret Atwood’s writings.
I am currently ‘enjoying’, and I use that word very much in parenthesis, a book by Lynn Truss. The setting is 1950’s England, and the language reflects proper English dialogue, both posh and cockney. As a matter of fact, the use of language is used by the acute detective to delineate the speaker – does he use a napkin or a serviette?
Jack and I often remark if a really good word goes by – “good word”. That means to both of us that the word we just heard was not one that either of us usually knew, but was stupendous when used in the context. We probably will then forget it, but that is all right too. One word that I think of off the top of my head, is Louise Penny using ‘chiaroscuro’. (It has just taken the two of us 15 mins to google until we found the word – we knew what we wanted to say, but could not remember it. Oh, the joy of language!)
As for the Reader’s Digest word – yes, Karen in Ohio who today is in England, it was a favourite bathroom read and test. It usually got me with at least one word!
I will conclude with baby-talk. Arggghh! Talk to your kids, grandkids in real words. Challenge their vocabulary at the beginning. Read to them more diverse books that just ‘Good Night Moon’. Read Dr Suess, Robert Munsch. Make them think, and make them read even if it is only you reading to them at night – well past age 5.
I agree about Dr. Seuss, Robert Munsch - but I (and my grandkids) loved reading Goodnight Moon. We loved "watching" the mouse as he moved to different locations in the room as you turn the page. The moon also moves across the sky as the pages turn. There is more than meets the eye in Goodnight Moon. Another great children's author which touches on heartwarming and serious issues in a way appropriate for children is Patricia Palaccio. She talks about kids with learning disabilities who go on to become rocket scientists, a writer (she), etc. She has a wonderful book titled, "Chicken Sunday" that is so heartwarming and rich that I couldn't read it to my 1st grade student without crying.
DeleteI knew all those words. Do I regularly use them? No. I think the way we speak in casual conversation is not always indicative of the words we use. It's too casual. I use "I'm good" all the time when someone asks how I am. Do I know it's supposed to be "I'm well?" Of course, But it's the old Churchill saying, "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something with which I shall not put." Sounds weird.
ReplyDeleteMy kids text, but they call, too. Texts are for quick questions or sometimes group conversations. Calls are for real talks. My daughter told me recently she sometimes wished she didn't have a smart phone and she didn't like having to share her location all the time. I said, "Then turn it off." She told me people think it's rude if you don't share your location all the time. "Nobody has a right to know where you are 24/7. You're an adult. Turn it off."
The problem isn't the technology. It's us.
I love reading newspapers. We get our local paper delivered every morning. I asked my neighbor if she would like me to save the paper for her and she said she prefers to catch the news on TV or internet. Fair enough, but when she didn't know about a massive new city program that is taking away our trashcans and replacing them with new ones and charging residents (on their tax bills) triple what we are paying for city trash pick up now -- well she had no idea! Well, she would have had she read the local paper!
ReplyDeleteI think so much confusion today is people don't read enough from factual news sources and so much false info is spewed that people don't have a clue what is accurate.
Peek into a middle schooler's back pack and you will most likely find a graphic novel (basically a comic book) with pretty mundane story lines. So many of the literature I remember as a kid had intricate plots and serious (but age appropriate) themes. I loved reading Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn, Charlotte's Web, the Bronte sisters, Gone with the Wind, etc. And I wasn't even a good reader - I was slow and often had to re-read sections to remember where I left off. Even Dr. Seuss (although in the comic book style) touched on serious matters in many of his children's books. My very first book (at around age 6) was "The Cat in the Hat" by Seuss and was what hooked me on reading books. My generation was taught to read "Dick & Jane" books which actually taught us how to read but weren't very interesting.
ReplyDeleteRHYS: Words is one of my favourite topics. I recognize eight of the words on the list and the other words are new to me. I love this word "absquatulate" meaning "to leave abruptly_. That is quite a long word.
ReplyDeleteI've heard many wonderful things about Montessori schools.
As a child, I always loved learning new vocabulary words. It is ironic because there is a school of thought that Sign Language will cause lower language skills. My family and I communicated in "baby Sign Language", which I now know is Signed Exact English, which are signed words in the English order. When I learned American Sign Language (more like Shakespearean English or a foreign language) at the age of 8, my vocabulary increased tenfold! I learned many new words. When our 4th grade class had a visitor from France, I wanted to learn the French language. All I remember is learning the French word for five "Cinq", girls "filles" and boys "garcons".
I wonder if the erosion of language in the younger generations started after Mister Rogers died? I remember the PBS shows like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
I know them all except hebetude and lepid, and I think I'm hazy on imprecation.
ReplyDeleteYour daughter's Montessori school sounds fabulous. We are a family of big readers and crossword puzzles, and my sons married women who are also. My granddaughter is growing up surrounded by books and by people who do not talk down to her.
I think there have probably always been people who have more extensive language skills than others.
I think there has always been a divide between those with large, literate vocabularies and those with more limited ones. The language among the educated upper classes in the mid 19th century was ornate. When I used to show my 8th graders the movie GLORY, about the Civil War, I used to quickly paraphrase many lines immediately after the actors spoke them, so the children would understand what was happening. I never had to paraphrase for the less literate characters.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy words but as a teacher I always counseled my husband, who gave speeches, to limit his vocabulary in them to words easily grasped by an 8th grader. It's my belief that if the purpose of words is communication, using words that people don't understand is counterproductive. I was sad when Bernie began railing against "oligarchs." This is not an 8th grade vocabulary word. "Billionaires" is. Similarly, the brilliant federal judge in Massachusetts, William G. Young, who recently ruled against Marco Rubio et al wrote:
"Can you imagine a masked Marine? It is a matter of honor—and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police. Carrying on in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it."
I have a large vocabulary and though I grasped his meaning from context, I had to look up "obloquy." Young's meaning is actually the second definition. Wouldn't he have communicated more easily and clearly if he had used the 8th grade word "disgrace"? (Selden)