Who DOES speak English?

I have found that I cause confusion by using the English language . Yes, confusion, and with people who were born right here in the USA. I find that many words meet silence and then the query, “what does that mean”? OK folks, I grew up in the hood. We didn’t call it that at the time, but it was a poor neighborhood, there were 2 riots that spilled onto our street when I lived there, and three languages were spoken regularly. Yet somehow, we knew the English language.

It’s funny that the same people that say “learn to speak English”, apparently do not. So what are these difficult and puzzling words? They are words like:

Exacerbate

Exponential

Faciliatate

Self sabbotage
(or as Bugs Bunny would say Sab O Tage EEEEE)

Alleviate

Cliche’

Perception

Unconsciously

It is hard for me to stop and take my language down a few notches, but I don’t think that I speak above most people. I did graduate college, twice, and grad school, so I was exposed to lots of fancy language, but I don’t believe that these are hard words. My Mom used to make me look up words I didn’t know to see if there was a definition that she didn’t think of. My eight grade teacher gave us a word a day, and on Friday we better know what they all meant. There are some really fun words in our language, and some just happen to be the perfect words to use sometimes. Maybe I should include a “word a day” on the end of each blog.

Then there are the ones that are used incorrectly , as in “Let me AXE you a question”, or “WHENEVER I went to my sister’s house”. It is “ASK” and “WHEN”.

I am hoping people will email or comment and tell me how many of the eight words they know the meaning of without looking them up. Even if you have trouble putting the definition into words, do you get the concept and understand the word, that is good enough for me. I am curious! I am not the greatest wordsmith ever born, heck I didn’t even like English class, I thought it was boring, yet I understand people when they speak to me in my native language!

I want to know how many people DO speak English……after all if we want others to speak it, we sure better be able to ourselves.

Peshaui Wequashimese

(C)2013 Dr. R M Wolf. May not be used copied or reproduced without prior written permission.