Wordsmithing

I was sitting at a local bar/brewery with my dearest friend E this evening, celebrating her good ultrasound news and just enjoying one of my most favorite woman friends and our conversation turned to family and childhood. She comes from a very large, very involved family and as you all know by now, I am an only child. She is the second oldest of five and her family was relatively traditional (at least compared to mine I think).

E has always been a bit shocked by the words that come out of my mouth. I think she thinks I’m a wee bit brash, maybe even a little crass. My own personal vernacular is so far outside of her day to day rhythm of speech and until tonight I think maybe she thought it was intended purely for the shock value. That perhaps I chose my words with the sole purpose of dropping verbal bombshells for fun.

But honestly, I drop the f-bomb just as often as just about any other adjective (although I have consciously tried to not use it as often in this blog thinking maybe I was inadvertently offending people new to me and my writing, but the reader count has pretty much stayed the same so I may be reintroducing it in the near future). Cuss words really are just like additional adjectives in my vocabulary. Any additional weight they may carry for some who don’t use them very often is lost for me by sheer familiarity of use.

As a writer and overall lover of words, I’m always on the lookout for new ways of expressing myself. So in that way I wish that particular set still held the vehemence and awe that they do for most. They would give me yet another set of screwdrivers in my tool box. But in my historical choice of words those specifically are center stage on the same level as all of my other favorite words.

Favorite words like livid and lovely, genau and gorgeous, demand and despise, strumpet and harlot, kerfuffle and wonky, wander and focus, fantasy and flaky, blessing and belated, dearest and daughter, saunter and son and so many, many more.