If we were to paraphrase the beautiful work by the esteemed lyrical slam poet Sir Mixalot, it’ll be something like this:
“I like big words and I cannot lie
People often say that I use three syllable words to sound smarter than them or as I like to put it – ‘utilising gargantuan idioms to fabricate intelligence’. I like to correct them by telling them that it’s malapropism. Because what’s a better way to win an argument than to use words that mean the same but sound a little too ‘French’ for their taste.
This bit of malapropism shouldn’t affect you. I’m sick of coddling people who belittle intelligence. If you don’t know what a word means, look it up. It’ll be great if the government could hand out dictionaries in the name of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.
After the World War II was over, people tried adding a bad connotation with the term ‘Nazi’. Pfft… Like the rebel that I am, I didn’t believe in that. So now I use my supreme asshole-ry skills and brilliant (but failed) GRE preparations to become this evolved group of people – Grammar Nazis.
During my leisure time, I try and help random strangers on the internet by reviewing restaurants and maintaining food blogs. Here is an excerpt from my perfect review of Aggarwal Sweets:
France glimmers with the Palace of Versailles and London shines with Buckingham Palace. Not to be outdone, Sushant Nagar created its very own Aggarwal Sweets.
Looking through the pictures of Aggarwal’s inventive, charming sweetologist Mr. Aggarwal, I am not surprised to note that several of them feature him standing among sweet collections, because the sweet soul of that world is surely where his memorable, creative, and traditional jalebi and dahi belong.
Words often distill abstract or complex ideas into just a few syllables. If used appropriately, they can paint an elegant picture with minimal waste. Like any composed work, an essay can be over-engineered, but it can also be beautiful and precise. Why go for simplicity when an over-the-top presentation works in our favour?
When Oppenheimer said, “So often, our intuitions about what will impress others are wrong”; he never considered how his name was difficult to pronounce in the first place. That’s why people take him seriously. To be considered a worthy part of society, I definitely need to use around 300 different words in a 700 word write-up.
When I’m sitting and eating my vadapav in Proustian splendor, I sometimes gaze out of the terrace toward the horizon in disbelief, realising how far I have come from using two syllable words for a mealy and tasteless mass-produced vocabulary to a smarter version of the language.
My ability to string together words that make it impossible for people to comprehend my thoughts obviously make me superior; a god amongst men.
Author’s Note:
“Knowing big words makes you smart, using them when you don’t need to makes you a chutiya.”
This write-up is heavy on irony. If you have a low haemoglobin count, please read this twice. If this were a superhero, it’d be Irony Man.