Many years ago I was chatting with with a young lady who is 10 years my junior, I had mentored her periodically throughout her life. We connect and disconnect and reconnect again. She’s a great kid and I’m always pleased when she pops back into my life.
She was in university at the time and she was talking about vocabulary. She mentioned that it’s easy to spot an educated person because they use a larger and more sophisticated vocabulary that people who haven’t attended post-secondary.
Her comment took me totally by surprise.
I have a grade 12 diploma, but I had never felt like I couldn’t keep up in a conversation because I hadn’t taken post-secondary education. It’s possible I scoffed at her, I don’t remember for sure, but I also asked her the why’s and how’s this might be possible.
She said it was because of the amount of reading they have to do and they naturally just pick it up.
I’m quite certain you don’t have to attend post-secondary to read more. So I started reading better books with a side agenda of increasing my vocabulary. (I still have no idea if this worked, but I have found a love for books because they are someone’s deeply flushed out and explored opinion about something and quite a cheap way to further your knowledge in a subject. Yay for books!)
I do love it when I hear a new word and lawyers use lots of them.
Yesterday, one lawyer used the word pedantic while talking about the other lawyer. I immediately looked it up on vocabulary.com which typically has lovely and clear explanations for words that an uneducated person like myself can understand.
Pedantic: There’s nothing wrong with focusing on the details, but someone who is pedantic makes a big display of knowing obscure facts and details.
If you’re like me the next order of business might be to look up obscure.
Obscure: If something is obscure, it’s vague and hard to see. Be careful if you’re driving in heavy rain — the painted lines can be obscure.
Got it.
I’m giggling because it is slightly humorous to hear one lawyer say this about another. It’s the pot calling the kettle black, but all fancy and educated like.
Let’s now see if we can use the word pedantic in our travels shall we?