I love languages! And I especially love beautifully spoken or written languages. I love collecting beautifully written sentences or phrases. I kept notebooks full of them. And I memorized some of those sentences just in case I find myself in a perfect moment where I can be eloquent courtesy of someone else. Later, I would collect my own thoughts crafted with words and phrases painstakingly chosen from my growing reservoir. There is nothing more grand than thoughts cleverly packaged and constructed using only the best permutation of words that perfectly encapsulates even the most simple thought. Carefully choosing the right words to convey a thought or concept is like choosing the perfect pattern of china or silver to serve life's most delectable sustenance. And oh yes--- when necessary, even the most hurtful insult can be expertly crafted. They can be perfectly timed to explode much later when you are no longer present. Or, for the cruel in nature, they can be like extended release capsules.
I'd like to think that my children have a superior vocabulary and that when they express themselves, they talk like intelligent people. And even more so, I do believe that they have intelligent thoughts and opinions. Though I loved to sometimes 'baby talk' when they were little, we often engaged in exchanges of ideas using a level of conversation that I would deem as articulate. I just assumed that if I use a variety of vocabulary words, they would be intelligent enough to either ask for the meaning of the word or infer its meaning from the context. And because English is my second 'oral' language, I did not fall into any category of American dialects. I simply tried to speak proper English.
I still hold on to my old grammar rules from grade school. And I still have to pause many times to retrieve the 'exact' word that describes what I want to communicate.
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