Where Are the Elegant Words?

Visiting my brother for the holiday, I found a puzzle in his local paper, “WonderWords.” The theme for this circle-the-word challenge was “Words Going Extinct.” There were several I had never seen or heard before, some I agreed were probably antique—good only for writers creating new works set in the past.

But then, I woke the following morning with the thought that there are many words I have not heard for a long time. I miss elegant words, I thought. Words that are precise, not just make-do. I long for days I never knew except in the movies of the 1930s when language was almost as important as the plot. My mother regularly seasoned her speech with words that required definition, but which were precise. Sometimes at school I would drop one of these words and startle my friends. “It’s a Mom word,” I told them which explained nothing but sufficed for the moment.

It has been too long since conversation has challenged and thrilled with the words and expressions it contains. I am tired of the sloppy talk of back alleys, rough streets, gutters; broken grammar copied until it seems to be no longer broken but somehow just as it should be by too many. I can appreciate the clever misuse of language, but I mourn when it becomes the standard. Language is owned by its speakers, but sad to say there seem to be too few who joy in its potential artistry.

Elegant speech challenges but is received too often by its hearers as a “put down” because it makes the listeners feel left out and confused. Rather than pursue knowledge and gain understanding of those wonderful words and expressions, they choose to believe they are an act of aggression. I once dated a man who was sure I was trying to make him uncomfortable on purpose, by speaking of things to which he had not been exposed or disposed to discover.

“That’s just how I talk and always have within my family,” I told him. “I am not trying to insult you and I am sorry you feel that I am. I can’t promise to stop mentioning topics important to me and using the words I know that you may not. I guess you’ll just have to accept that or stop dating me.” That relationship did end shortly after this conversation. Wish it had not been so.