I was building discussion points for a project in another part of my life and I got stuck for a word. I needed something to describe what someone who originates an idea does – or did. I thought “introduce” didn’t capture the work involved, “create” sounded too supernatural, “instigate” seemed somehow sinister, and “initiate” was much too formal. Well that exhausted the listings in my mental thesaurus. Time to dig up Mr. Roget’s best seller and see if I could find just the right set of letters to satisfy my word quest. I was actually out of the chair when I slapped myself in the forehead, fortunately not wearing a heavy ring, when I sat back down, keyed in o-r-i-g-i-n-a-t-e, hovered, and right-clicked on it.
- Create (already eliminated that one)
- Invent (no, not the feeling I’m after)
- Initiate (again, I thought of that one without anybody’s help)
- Instigate (still sounds sinister)
- Make (dull)
- Devise (wouldn’t have thought of that in a million years but that’s ok because I don’t like it anyway)
- Patent (I’d argue that’s the same as originate but that’s just me)
- Coin (ooh, good word – not the right word but a good one)
- Begin (blah)
- Derive (again, I argue that derive and originate are not synonymous)
- [ ] (notice, they didn’t even come up with “introduce” like I did, not that it mattered)
In the end, or actually middle given that I’m still working on the project, I went with “originate” knowing I’ll never be completely satisfied that I did my best at creating an original set of discussion points. (See what I did there? Hmm?)
Although my mini-search hadn’t satisfied my curiosity for an appropriate substitute for “originate,” it raised my curiosity about words. I seem to end up with three of four posts about words and language each year. That’s a lot of words! I’ve gone back and forth to suggesting we need more words to we have too many words to we need better words. I know we need still need better words and I offer my ambivalence toward “originate” for proof. I’m not so sure we need more words, yet we keep inventing them. In one of those posts up yonder (or should I say heretofore mentioned), I wrote, “The English language is said to have close to a million words in it. I’m not sure who counted that but the most complete, or as they would put it unabridged dictionary of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, has about 620,000 words. But language doesn’t equal vocabulary. And vocabulary doesn’t equal language. The average educated English speaking person knows around 20,000 words and uses but about 2,000 words in a week.”
That was in 2017. Now things are even more confusing. The OED still contains over 620,000 listings, listings not words, many are duplicates because we use the same word for different uses. (See that. I did it again.) It lists (yep, again) 171,000 different words. But now those same sources say the average American English speaking person knows about 40,000 words. How did we double our word count in six years? For comparison, Classic Latin is composed of (comprised of?) 39,500 words.
There’s something not right here. I’m just not sure exactly how to express it.
Looking for your own perfect word? Practice your vocabulary. They say practice makes perfect, no? No! If no one can be perfect, why practice? Practice has to make something. What practice makes is a more positive you! Our most recent Uplift! digs into how that can be.
Go take a look for yourself. You can be there and back in about 3 minutes.
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One of the many reasons I admire you is your broad use of various words–you are a wordsmith. But you also understand the need for us as mere humans to grasp what we are saying to each other–and even though we have more words we use now, this seems to be an ever-increasing problem. We don’t say what we mean, or we don’t mean what we say. Very insightful, my friend.
“We don’t say what we mean, or we don’t mean what we say.” And some people are really good at doing both. They should be restricted to a daily word limit!
The people I most envy are the ones who can communicate without using words. They’ve found someone special in each other!
That kind of communication comes from spending time intentionally. Where you choose to know someone and don’t just monopolize the conversation. And I so agree with your comment about some people needing restrictions on their word limit. Silence is a gift we can choose to give to others. But you, my friend, need to keep speaking! What you have to say is valuable!
Thank you Dayle. That’s very kind of you to say.
Your Uplift post is a gem! And I hear you…the quest for the ‘just right’ word. Funny how we can head down a rabbit hole oh-so-quickly when we know there’s something better, more perfectly aligned with the thought or feeling we’re trying to capture but we can’t put our finger on it. Maddening, for sure. 😉
Oh more than maddening! Please don’t dare tell anyone but I’m still looking for just the right word for that project.🧐
How can there be so many words, so much music, so many colors but we still struggle to find the right one that speaks to us. I should go back and read some of the stuff I’ve written about not waiting for just the right one to come along. It won’t be perfect but it will be good.
Anyway, it’s always fun to visit the rabbit hole.
Gosh yes….rabbit holes leading to rabbit warrens. LOL! 🤣