"You chastised me for that!"
"I what…? What does chastise even mean?"
That was a recent conversation I had at dinner. I accused my wife of ridiculing me–in the past–about dipping my cheese curds in ketchup (If you unsub because of that, that's fine).
She then called me out on using the word chastised to reference her ridiculing.
To her defense, I'm known to use big words I don't fully comprehend to appear more intelligent (yes, I'm insecure. I'm working on it). But this time, I knew I used the right word.
Chastise means to "rebuke or reprimand severely."
Maybe it was overkill. I believe it was accurate.
Katie and I were also with my friend Jamie. While we walked to our car, he turned to me and asked why I knew that word.
First, it's a Lil Baby song that spurred me to look up the word. Second, I try to use bigger words for other reasons than my insecurity, shown in my reply:
"I enjoy to write. And as a writer, I try to have granularity in my vocabulary to improve specificity, which improves both my life and writing."
I've written before about the vitality of being able to choose from a variety of words. It's essential to great writing.
I'm barely off the ground in my journey to improve my vocab. Aka, I'm a noob.
But I've started.
I'm curious about words people use that I don't know (pompous *ass*)
I research synonyms for words (vital or essential, rather than important)
I read books above my pay grade to learn new and better words (granularity)
Have you? The time is now, friend.
One note before you go: Please don't turn into an intellectual terrorist who kamikazes big words at people who don't have the range of vocabulary to comprehend.
That's not cool. That's being a douche (can I still use that word, or will I be canceled?).
Marketeer Insights ⚔️
- To write better, you need to expand the range of your vocabulary
- Get curious about learning new words to describe things more accurately (e.g., emotions, events, people)
- Define specific actions you will take to improve your vocabulary
- (👋🏼 Katie here) Don't dip your cheese curds in ketchup
🧠 + ❤️ // JO