Here's the thing. I have a big vocabulary thanks to AP English and years of consuming as many books as possible. Here's the other thing: I'm not always sure how to pronounce said words or whether I'm using them properly. This is the consequence of reading, instead of hearing, and gleaning definitions via context instead of consulting a dictionary.

I'm not above embarrassing myself so as to help a friend. I hope you'll learn from my example. A big vocabulary is grand but pronouncing and using words correctly is even better.

Exhibit A:

Senior year of high school, AP English, Dr. Langlas's class. The assignment: write a scene involving any two characters from the books we'd read that year. I chose Cyrano (from Cyrano de Bergerac) and Rochester (from Jane Eyre). After we wrote our scenes, we had to perform them in class. I loved this assignment and I still have my copy tucked away.

In any case, I included the word "façade", which made perfect sense given Cyrano's penchant for pretense. Except when I said my part, I pronounced it as fackade, insted of fuh-sahd. Sure, I'd heard the word before- though who knows when or where, I knew what it meant, but I had no idea the word I'd read was the same thing as façade. (In retrospect, I probably could have figured it out if I'd stopped to think about it.)

Exhibit B:

Last week I read Carolyn Weber's stunning new book Holy Is The Day. It's definitely one of my favorite reads of 2013. (Don't worry- lists are coming.) Caro is an English professor so it is no great surprise that literary references and big vocabulary words abound. Most of the time, no matter what you're reading, you can surmise what a word is intended to mean based on context. It's a great way to learn new words. They might not have every day use but I like to add them to my arsenal.

When I read, I generally don't think consciously about how a word is pronounced. But every once in awhile, a word will jump out at me and I'll wonder. In this particular case, Caro used the word "serpentine." Not a new word to me, not in the least. And yet I suddenly couldn't remember how to pronounce it. Serpen-teen? Serpen-tyne? I shrugged and moved on, merely grateful I wasn't reading out loud.

For the record, it's pronounced "serpent-teen."

Exhibit C:

When I was trying to come up with a title for this post, I thought I'd use "The Loquacious Vocabulary." But then I thought I should double-check whether "loquacious" meant what I thought it did. Good thing because it generally means "wordy or full of excessive talk." Not what I wanted to convey.

I asked friends for a word that means "someone who has a big vocabulary" and the results were interesting. My favorites: lexicomane, vocabularian, and sesquipedalian. And yet, there's no way to be sure the majority of readers would know what they meant. Hence, I stuck with "Vocabulary Woes."

Linking up with #bookwormproblems at Quirky Bookworm

Do you have any vocabulary woes?

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