The Case For Vocabulary

I am an elocutionist. I fall for grandiloquent gymnastics and articulate aptitudes; there is a particular art to speaking and writing with beauty and grace. More people should aim for such goals.

As much as I wish, however, it would be unreasonable to expect every person to speak and write like a Dr. Martin Luther King, just as it would be unreasonable to expect every person to paint like a Michelangelo. But our society has placed the expansion of vocabulary lower and lower on the academic hierarchy. When in fact, an accurate and versatile lexicon is essential to every profession and endeavor. What are words if not the nervous system of society?

Somewhere before high school, vocabulary lessons get shelved and this astounds me. The reasoning could be that at a certain age, students must take it upon themselves to expand their vocabulary. This could be a rational course of action if our educational institutions impressed upon students the necessity of expert use of language. But in reality, students enter high school with an inappropriate sense that their lexical abilities are adequate.

Another possible reason for the abandonment of teaching vocabulary is that some educators may deem it unnecessary; in the modern world students don’t need to know words like “insalubrious” or “plenipotentiary.”

But this is comparable to teaching math students that numbers above one hundred aren’t necessary.

Every word has a unique nuance that may make it appropriate or inappropriate for certain contexts. For example, “preservation” and “conservation” are words that many people juxtapose without any thought about what makes them two words – they are separate words for a reason. Preservation speaks to the maintenance of something, keeping it in its original state. Conservation speaks to the protection of something from harm or destruction.

Even these words change definition depending on context.

Such intricacies demand our diligence in mastering language. Without this expertise, conveying information will become – and is becoming – oversimplified. We must prevent tools like dictionaries and thesauruses from becoming anachronistic and antiquated. Attaining an expansive vocabulary, and grasping the ability to apply it, will protect us ambiguity and equivocation.