Mamacita says:  People with tiny, limited vocabularies scare me.

I am positive that these are the people who melt down in public and starting stabbing everyone within reach.

It’s a fact that the person who throws the first punch generally has a smaller vocabulary than his/her victim.  People with small vocabularies have trouble understanding basic conversation.  People with small vocabularies often don’t have enough words to communicate their thoughts, or understand other people’s conversations.  Picture a toddler trying to communicate – a tiny child with not enough actual words to convey what he/she is trying to say to you.  Quite often, the toddler will give up and just start belting anyone and anything in his/her path, or the child will simply melt down in a tantrum of frustration.  This, much of the time, is forgivable in a small child; it is NOT forgivable in an adult.

Violent adults are often like this – many violent people are just frustrated at their own lack of ability to understand others and to communicate to others.

This is no one’s fault but their own, by the way.  Tiny-vocabulary adults will get little sympathy from me.  Life is full of choices, and if they’ve chosen not to expand their horizons with cool new words every day, so be it.  They’ve condemned themselves to a life of mediocrity.  You can buy a dictionary and a thesaurus at the Dollar Tree.

Every book we read expands our vocabularies, and simultaneously our ability to connect with the universe.  Non-readers don’t experience that.

Back in the middle school, almost every.  Single.   Fight. was started by a non-reader with a small vocabulary.  He/she just simply ran out of means of communication, or misinterpreted the other kid’s words, and acted out in the only way he/she could understand: physically.  I believe the same is true for adults who don’t know very many words.

I think what annoys me most – at least right this moment – are people whose vocabularies are so limited that they know only one meaning for a word: people with no comprehension of context or multiple definitions depending ON that context.

There are, as we speak, committees of “concerned parents” trying to edit classic children’s and adult literature.  They read that “. . . Scrooge had no further intercourse with the spirits. . . .” and assume that Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present had a little thing going on, ifyouknowwhatImean.  These people hear the Christmas carol lyrics “. . . the ox and ass kept time. . . .” and simply HAVE to change that dreadful word to “lamb.”  They want no part of singing – or hearing their innocent children singing – about donning their gay apparel.

Apparently, such people do not own a dictionary or thesaurus, and have no concept of multiple definitions or context.  They hear a word and know only one meaning.

I have little patience with these people, because I do not suffer fools gladly.  I don’t think anybody should, in fact. Perhaps, if fools were not catered to so much, people would try not to BE fools.

I am not speaking of English language learners, or SPED, so don’t start with me.  I am speaking of people who just simply find it easier to be ignorant of their own language, and force everybody else to dumb down to their level.

This is inexcusably horrible.

Here is a piece of advice I give my students each semester, and now I give it to you:  Keep a dictionary in the bathroom.  Learn at least one new word in all of its nuances with each twosie.  If you’re going to be sitting there for a while, learn several new words.

Keep a thesaurus in there, too, if for no other reason than to be able to describe your awesome pooping experience in words other than “stinky, loud, and big.”

Give your kids a thesaurus apiece and encourage them to fling cool big words at each other. Do not make your kids share one thesaurus; each kid needs his/her own.

And keep your ignorance away from our libraries.  They have trouble enough with budgets without having to deal with ignorant gits with tiny linguistic skills.

Also? Shame on you.

I Love Little Pussy, by Jane Taylor

I love little Pussy,
Her coat is so warm;
And if I don’t hurt her
She’ll do me no harm.
So I’ll not pull her tail,
Nor drive her away,
But Pussy and I
Very gently will play;
She shall sit by my side,
And I’ll give her some food;
And Pussy will love me
Because I am good.
I’ll pat little Pussy,
And then she will purr,
And thus show her thanks
For my kindness to her;
I’ll not pinch her ears,
Nor tread on her paw,
Lest I should provoke her
To use her sharp claw;
I never will vex her,
Nor make her displeased,
For Pussy can’t bear
To be worried or teased.

==

With your mind out of the gutter, “concerned parents,” that’s a lovely little poem.  Too bad these parents have succeeded in having it removed from many elementary anthologies.  A lot of “concerned citizens” might want to concern themselves with their own brainwaves before “concerning” themselves with trying to limit anyone else’s.

Vapid, specious pablum-eaters.