When people reach middle age, a not-so-surprising thing happens to your brain: it begins to check out a wee bit. Not a lot, mind you, but enough for you to take notice.
I’m talking minor things here. You know, wondering where your car keys are when you’ve got them in your hand. Going blank when introducing your spouse. Finding your shampoo in the fridge. Answering the TV remote as if it were a phone.
Miniscule stuff, but disconcerting nonetheless.
If you’re like most people, you rationalize this cranial corrosion by saying to yourself, “I just have too much going on! No wonder I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night! A brain can only hold so much!”
I do that, too. It’s comforting to think that my middle-aged brain is saturated with so much weighty information that it can’ t hold a morsel more. But the truth is, I don’t really believe it.
I know the cylinders aren’t firing the way they used to. Which is why – as a compensatory strategy – I have embraced sprinkling my vocabulary with some highfalutin words. Bloviating politicians do it all the time.
Word choice, I have discovered, is crucial to the success of this tactic. Too obscure, and you simply sound pompous. Too ordinary, and you accomplish nothing. As an example: “Boryborygmus” is pretentious; “flatulence” does the trick; “toot” achieves zilch, may even set you back a notch.
Although every situation is different, I have routinely found great success with the following words: ameliorate (improve), belligerent (aggressive), expedite (speed up), feral (untamed), innocuous (harmless), and plethora (excess). But those are just my leanings; you need to find your own set of impressive words that will garner approving nods.
Facial expression while delivering big words is of utmost importance. Hard as it may be – because you are consciously using words outside your verbal comfort zone – you must maintain a rather ho-hum expression about it all. No cocked eyebrows, no smug smiles, no fluttering nostrils. Otherwise, you run the risk of letting the conniving cat out of the duplicitous bag.
Oh, and you’ll want to spread your words out. Too many brainy words delivered in the first beats of conversation will give your audience pause, especially if you’re not known for being the town lexicon.
Lastly, it’s imperative that you remember what the word means and how best to use it. To be sure, I find this step super hard, downright exigent as the day wears on and my brain wears out. Exigent? Is that right? Oh, I don’t know. It’s late in the day and I’m tired. Besides, I’m going out and my ride is here. I know this because they keep “flatulating” the horn.
When people reach middle age, a not-so-surprising thing happens to your brain: it begins to check out a wee bit. Not a lot, mind you, but enough for you to take notice.
I’m talking minor things here. You know, wondering where your car keys are when you’ve got them in your hand. Going blank when introducing your spouse. Finding your shampoo in the fridge. Answering the TV remote as if it were a phone.
Miniscule stuff, but disconcerting nonetheless.
If you’re like most people, you rationalize this cranial corrosion by saying to yourself, “I just have too much going on! No wonder I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night! A brain can only hold so much!”
I do that, too. It’s comforting to think that my middle-aged brain is saturated with so much weighty information that it can’ t hold a morsel more. But the truth is, I don’t really believe it.
I know the cylinders aren’t firing the way they used to. Which is why – as a compensatory strategy – I have embraced sprinkling my vocabulary with some highfalutin words. Bloviating politicians do it all the time.
Word choice, I have discovered, is crucial to the success of this tactic. Too obscure, and you simply sound pompous. Too ordinary, and you accomplish nothing. As an example: “Boryborygmus” is pretentious; “flatulence” does the trick; “toot” achieves zilch, may even set you back a notch.
Although every situation is different, I have routinely found great success with the following words: ameliorate (improve), belligerent (aggressive), expedite (speed up), feral (untamed), innocuous (harmless), and plethora (excess). But those are just my leanings; you need to find your own set of impressive words that will garner approving nods.
Facial expression while delivering big words is of utmost importance. Hard as it may be – because you are consciously using words outside your verbal comfort zone – you must maintain a rather ho-hum expression about it all. No cocked eyebrows, no smug smiles, no fluttering nostrils. Otherwise, you run the risk of letting the conniving cat out of the duplicitous bag.
Oh, and you’ll want to spread your words out. Too many brainy words delivered in the first beats of conversation will give your audience pause, especially if you’re not known for being the town lexicon.
Lastly, it’s imperative that you remember what the word means and how best to use it. To be sure, I find this step super hard, downright exigent as the day wears on and my brain wears out. Exigent? Is that right? Oh, I don’t know. It’s late in the day and I’m tired. Besides, I’m going out and my ride is here. I know this because they keep “flatulating” the horn.
