Just Be Real Already

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Dr. Seuss

I’ve always felt a connection to that quotation. In simple terms it is saying to be yourself. Be real. Just be who you are, no masks, no false faces, no hidden agendas. It seems these days nobody wants to be real. Or maybe they just are afraid to be real.

I have a supervisor at work who imagines himself a thinker. He likes to improve his knowledge and I give him credit for that. He follows a “word of the day” program and tries to incorporate that new word into his life for the day. Yay him. Really.

Except that it sounds false and forced. And that is what happens so often in things I find myself reading. Many times people who write feel it necessary to show off their vocabulary intelligence, even if they have no vocabulary intelligence.

It’s easy to open up a thesaurus and pick the biggest word, hardest word to understand, to exchange for the simple word one normally uses. “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back” becomes “the expeditious mahogany hound jounced traverse the somnolent mongrel’s posterior”. Not only was that time consuming to try to put together, but it will be awkward and uncomfortable for the reader to translate. It also may not be completely accurate. Somnolent leans more toward sleepy than lazy. Hound doesn’t accurately portray a fox.

Can you imagine an entire paper, essay or even a book that has been written in this manner, using words intended to give the appearance of a higher intelligence or at least a stronger vocabulary? To break it down, it becomes obvious the author simply wanted his readers to think he was smart. It is a symptom of vanity.

These days most of our conversation is dumbed down and shortened. Life is filled with hurrying and speeding things along. Often conversations are reduced to a couple text messages exchanged back and forth. Even these are filled with acronyms and shortcuts. We laugh with an LOL or a LMAO. “Do you want to do lunch at 4:00 at Shorty’s” becomes “Lnch @4 Shortys OK?” and the quick response is usually “K”.

Those are at least real. Communication is intended to get our point across, to exchange information with others. For communication to be good, both parties need to correctly understand the information being exchanged. Speaking through a thesaurus is just as bad as trying to speak different languages.

Most writers are avid readers as well. It comes with the territory. Reading enhances our vocabulary automatically. As we come across a word we don’t understand and can’t deduce through the rest of the sentence we look it up and it becomes a new part of our own vocabulary.

There are moments when a thesaurus is necessary for a writer. If I want to express something and I can’t find the exact word to say exactly what I am trying to express the thesaurus is a valuable tool. In the example above maybe “brown” is too vague to describe the fox. Maybe “mahogany” is much closer to the actual color. Then it works. The reader should be able to figure out the meaning.

But, to throw in what I call “five dollar words” just to sound intelligent or important actually has the opposite effect. We can tell what you did. It’s obvious you don’t normally speak with those words because the writing is awkward sounding and doesn’t flow smoothly.

I feel that the best writers actually write as they speak. The words flow through their fingers as they would flow off their tongue. They carry on a one sided conversation with their reader. THIS is the key to good writing. Be real. Be yourself.