In Defense of Pretentious Fifty-Cent Words

I may be irritatingly loquacious, but at least I have the vocabulary to buttress my tendency toward logorrhea.

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

For starters, why are we still calling them “fifty-cent words” in today’s economy? Serious question.

What can you even buy for a piddly, infinitesimal fifty cents in 2020? A dented can of garbanzo beans on the Walmart clearance shelf, perhaps. But is a damaged canned vegetable’s market value really equivalent to an SAT vocabulary word like vociferous? Déclassé garbanzo beans will do in a pinch when you want a quick protein topper for a salad. But vociferous packs a punch in a tightly crafted sentence that its weaker brothers vehement and insistent cannot hope to approximate.

I propose we keep up with inflation and start calling these expressions “hundred-dollar words,” just for the sake of equitableness. A word that sums up the esoteric feeling of satisfaction at the downfall of your enemies, such as schadenfreude, certainly deserves to hold its own against your entire grocery bill.

But, setting this minor quibble aside, I shall address the heart of this expostulation. Friends, Romans, countrymen, I weep to inform you that there are those in our midst who frown upon the use of the lengthy and descriptive word. There are those who call it “confusing” and “off-putting” and “nobody knows what that MEANS, Amy.”

Rubbish. I have no time for such benighted drivel.

Noah Webster gave us a dictionary, and he meant for us to USE it, doggone it. If you can’t fathom the meaning of a word simply by scouring its contextual clues, then go crack open your lexicon and look it up. Or, if you are an insouciant whippersnapper of the technologically inclined variety, use the Google.

Without expensively termed language, how can one expect to unequivocally express the precise nature of one’s meaning? We cannot all be plebeians and grasp at “very” and “extremely” ad infinitum to convey depths of nuance and implication. No, those of us who wish to rise above the proletariat and bask in the incandescence of impeccable, unmistakable expression — preferably in multisyllabic form — we understand the irresistible magnetism of the lengthy word.

I, personally, revel in my status as a verbomaniac.

Will a tendency toward periphrasis frighten away the uninitiated? Perhaps.

Will it boost my ofttimes fragile ego and strengthen my tendency toward self-indulgent pedagogy? Indubitably.

Well, why else would I be writing on the Internet about subjects that interest only myself? Not to fund early retirement, that’s for sure.

So, if you too are a circumlocutor who enjoys that warm glow of satisfaction that accompanies the finding of the perfect idiom, rest in the knowledge that you are not alone. You are seen. You are heard. Your thoughts and feelings are read, and understood, because you express yourself with such eloquent exposition.

Ignore the naysayers and misanthropes. They know not whereof they speak. Or read. Quite literally, in fact.

Even spellcheck casts a dubious eye toward those of us who write lengthily and pretentiously. “Logorrhea? RED UNDERLINE,” it booms. “Did you mean GONORRHEA?”

No. No, I did not. I meant “word vomit,” thank you very much.

Don’t be gross.

This piece originally appeared in The Haven in 2020.