CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Why Do People Want Me to Talk Down to Them?

Sunday, June 22, 2008

this entry brought to you by modest mouse, "the view"


I have a pretty large vocabulary, and I refuse to dumb myself down. I'm not going to use lower language just because I think somebody might not understand it. I think that's beneath me, and besides, I wouldn't want someone talking down to me if they thought I wasn't smart enough to handle it. With that said, I don't use collegiate words that nobody knows in everyday conversation. Keep in mind that I work on the night crew at a grocery store, a group of people not ordinarily known for being especially verbose, but it's not as if I walk around with a pipe in my mouth, wearing a smoking jacket. I mentioned the word "mongoloid". I think I was referring to Britney Spears, and I'd said that she had a fucked up, mongoloid face. This comment was met with blank stares from the six people on break with me, and nobody knew what that word meant. One guy accused me of making up words. Mongoloid.

Now, there are some terms that I use in fairly common conversation that, when somebody doesn't understand, it doesn't exactly surprise me. Maybe I'll use "collegiate" or "verbose", and people might give me looks. I don't think these are especially complex words, and I would think that when I use them people can understand them from the context of the conversation. But they are vocabulary words-- high school vocab words, but vocab words nonetheless-- so when people raise eyebrows, fine, I don't get upset.

But mongoloid?

A few weeks ago this guy I work with had described a movie as being a satire. Then, after a moment, he asked, rather sardonically, if I was proud of him for using the word "satire" in a sentence, if that word was big enough for me. And the honest truth of the matter is the term "satire" comes up in fairly day-to-day language with me; maybe if he'd used "satirical", which at least has more syllables, perhaps I'd notice.

When I was in high school, I was in Honors English. We were discussing something in class, and I had used the term "nth". I'd said that whatever example was being pushed to the nth degree. A kid in my class named Derrick, a guy I'd gone to school with my whole life, from first grade on up, who was a prep, lived in the rich part of town, and had gone to honors classes his whole life, screwed up his face and said "Nth? What the hell does that mean? Do you just read the dictionary all day?"

Uhm... It was a vocabulary word? Granted, it was an Honors English vocabulary word... but we were sitting in Honors English!

When I'm giving these examples, the part you don't hear is the jeering attitudes and the honest befuddlement, the genuine scoff in people's voices when they complain about my big vocabulary. They have absolutely no idea why I would bother learning words, or why I would use them in a sentence, or why I would think they'd be able to follow along when I speak. But what I don't understand about this is, why would a person specifically want to be talked down to? Why would they want me to assume that they couldn't understand what I'm saying and dumb myself down? Why would they expect me to treat them like children? Don't people hate it when you treat them like children? Don't children hate it when you treat them like children?

Look, I know words that I use only when I'm specifically trying to sound smart. Like, I know what bourgeoisie is, and I can use it in a sentence, but that's fucking pretentious, and I would only use it in an extremely high brow conversation, or in a sentence where I was specifically trying to sound pretentious. It's not as if I run around using latin terms. I don't drop French into casual conversation. I've never pointed at a hot lady with big bazoombas going by and described her as having "a certain.... je ne sais quoi." I've never accused anyone of being jingoistic. I've never used Quantum Theory as an analogy for something. These are things I could understand somebody giving me shit for. But "satire" and "mongoloid"?

Granted, I am working with a group of people who aren't the type to indulge in vernacular, and I understand that. But it's getting to the point, just listening to the way average people talk, and the way average people react to "big words", I'm beginning to be quite sure even if I actually went to Arizona State University to take some classes, people wouldn't know words like "bourgeoisie".
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on this day last year DAVE CHAPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY! SEXYBACK! LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL! ACCOUNT HACKS! on last year's POLARITY!
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with love from CRS @ 7:05 AM 

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