A few months ago I attended a party wherein a word game erupted. Our host dealt cards upon which ridiculously obscure words had been written. In turn, we offered (mostly made up) definitions of the words and used them in sentences. Then the group created a story, each person using their word to build on what prior storytellers had established. At the end of the story, the host read the “real” definitions (real as in dictionary-sanctioned).

Most of us preferred our invented meanings to those prescribed by the fusty Oxford English Dictionary. A few actually knew the dictionary-sanctioned definitions and goodnaturedly flaunted their book smarts.

Which was okay by me. It was just a game, after all.

Not so okay, I discovered, for others—or at least one other.

Weeks later, I ran into a friend who’d also attended the party and who gave vent to resentment and hurt feelings. What he said (paraphrased and essentially) was: People used the game as an opportunity to show off how witty and entertaining they could be.

“Interesting. What do you think the game should have been used for?” I asked, wondering if a game had to be used for anything besides play.

“It was supposed to bring people together, not divide them,” he said. Just because you know big words doesn’t mean you have to make other people feel stupid.”

And there you have it, the meat hanging from the bone my friend chose to pick.

To him, the game had been an ignoble contest intended to separate the richly vocabularied from the poor.

To me, it was about imagination, as the words were so obscure most of us had no clue about their actual meanings--which was what made the game fun.

Because it quickly cartwheeled into an exercise in playfulness and invention.

It was refreshing. For so long we’d been spoonfed definitions, first by parents, then teachers. Now we were in a position to exact revenge. For a couple of spirited hours we were the definers. Wielding our power with glee, we set about concocting meanings for words we’d never heard.

While this had felt alienating to my friend, to me it was liberating. To him, it had been a pop quiz; to me, storytime.

It’s hardly news that there’s a large and growing contingent of people who get irritated by the use of unusual or even less-usual words. To cite recent examples: John McCain prided himself on his Plain Talk and Sarah Palin proved allergic, in her own quirky verbalities, to “nuance.”

Wordism saddens me. Not that it’s such a terrible thing in a world full of undeniably terribler things. But it has curbed my optimism about the future of language and communication, thinking and understanding. All of which are connected to the development of empathy, a quality that’s recently fallen out of fashion—this I attribute in part to Bush and company, who are businessmen first, dispositional fundamentalists second and public servants twelfth-of-never.

Fundamentalists of all stripes tend to recoil at complexity in thought and speech. It is in their best interest to deny it because complexity of thought and word implicate the inherent and inconvenient complexities involved in social, moral and economic issues. Though maybe with Barack Obama as president speaking well and meaningfully will make a comeback, along with the acknowledgement of complexity and even the exercise of empathy.

One can hope.

Of course, using plain language is valuable and necessary, sometimes. But so is using colorful language, which helps us find our way to unexpected mental and emotional connections. Surprise in life and in language is underrated, as is precision. Expanded vocabularies speak of expanded experiences, the kind that improve quality of life. Words have the ability to reanimate and transform the ordinary. Especially for the generation growing up with Playstations and Wiis, this kind of transformative magic is mostly fed to consumers via visual media—movies, television, the web. Which is okay. But pictures aren’t worth 1,000 words often enough to trump words altogether. And while I’m not anti visual media. I am pro-literacy. To be well worded is to tend toward more energetic engagement in conversations with ourselves, others and the world at large. Any way you read it, this is a win for humans, as it’s been proven again and again that connection breeds health of mind, body and spirit. Also helpful for democracy, what’s left of it.

Using words is good for us. A simple point, yet one that smart people seem increasingly willing to ignore.

As our abilities to define experience and feelings grow richer so do our feelings and thoughts—and so, by extension, do the abilities to empathize and imagine. Do we really need to stunt the development of these skills? Skills that have the power to bring out the better in us, if not always the best. Increasingly, it seems, stressed out and overwhelmed kids resort to physical violence to communicate confusion and frustration.

Words won’t solve complex problems but they help. How can we ask for help if we lack the ability to identify the fact that we’re in trouble in the first place?

Given the alternatives, probably better to encourage familiarity with language. Words can help us find our ways in a complicated and confusing world. They can empower us, enable us to speak up about things we think are wrong, to voice disagreement—or agreement—in useful and civilized ways. So yes, I do think wordism is unfortunate and has, potentially, deep and wide repercussions for, on one hand, the development of a “better”society. If curiosity about language is shut down so is this hope notion our future President seems so fond of. It’s not overly dramatic to imagine that in some very serious ways wordism is speeding the devolution of civilized society--the devaluation of reason and imagination, as well as empathy and understanding.

I’m not saying words will cure all or even many of our ills. However it’s a heartening notion –envisioning a society that values its citizens and the environment, a place where, ideally, communication leads to understanding, the deployment of reason and imagination lead to empathy—and possibly to compassionate and generous action--rather than to violence and indifference.

Which, again, was part of the reason I was mildly disheartened by my friends wordist comments. He had joined the ranks of those who consider people who use to-them-unfamiliar words pathological one-upping alienators. And sure, these practitioners of word-prancery exist. And yes, those of us who grew up in word-rich environments are occasionally guilty of scrabulous maffickery and arcane trash-talkery. In other words, we can be competitive.

But the perspective that knowing and using unusual words--playing with them, remixing them, reimagining them—is driven solely by the will to power or even just to the power to be articulate misses what many of us experience when we discover new words or mess around with old ones.

Joy.

The expansion of our worlds of experience. Deeper connection with those around us. Not to mention the ability to identify different feelings and realms of experience and to be able to convey them powerfully to others—to share. Not everyone cares as much about language as I do and of course that’s fine. Naturally we all have our obsessions. But just because they don’t care doesn’t mean they should decide my interest is petty or power-motivated or worse. It is a hobby, and more than that. A hobby I pursue with great passion.

I collect words the way others collect microbrews or rare dub tracks. When I tripped over the word “kickshaw” in the dictionary, for instance, I was elated by the whimsical look and sound of the word, even before learning the definitions, which are: 1.) an appetizer or 2.) something showy but without value; trinket; trifle. The same for “wanderoo”: a monkey of south-central Asia, having a glossy black coat and a ruff of gray hair about the face. And when spelunking for unusual expressions, I often unearth chewy treats like “Eve with a lid,” diner shorthand for apple pie.

Discoveries like these are their own desserts.

Revelation from my pre-teen years: By forming innovative or absurd or just straight-up goofy combinations of words I often found myself mildly euphoric. (I started doing this instinctively when I was about 12.) My pleasure was not just derived from the meanings that words in sentences and paragraphs usually--though not always--accrued. I delighted in the sounds of words, the look of them on the page--solo and in concert. Wordplay gave me the kind of joy other kids seemed to derive from video games and sports.

I like to build up phrases and tear them down, stand them on their heads and dance them around. I invent what I imagine to be new coinages. Sometimes it’s pure play. But messing around occasionally yields unexpected gold in the form of poetry—other times bronze in the form of limericks. Or lead in the form of doggerel.

There is nothing particularly admirable about this vocabularian predilection. As a dog is obsessed with smelling dog butts, so am I obsessed with sniffing out syntax.

I regularly use words and combinations thereof that cause people to look at me like I’m an idiot. A big-word idiot. Someone who should know better than to say junk not everyone knows. Who do I think I am?

To these excoriators I say: What’s the kerfuffle? To the rest: Word.

-- Slanted