I've always loved vocabulary - savored it, enjoyed it, played with it (straight up DORK). Unfortunately, since the days of high school and college vocab enhancing activities have dwindled away, I'm left feeling like a child looking to a teacher for answers. Isn't that counterintuitive? I always thought that later in life, in the professional world, I'd be surrounded by people who enhanced my vocab and my grammar. Instead, I find my conversations in the workplace progressing more like this on a daily basis:
BOSS: "Can you forward that e-mail to Sally and I?"
ME: (slightly dismayed, as she has ASKED me to correct this mistake, and I've explained the rule about 100 times. *Sigh* it has apparently not sunk in yet) "Do you mean Sally and ME? Again, just take the other person out of the sentence to determine the correct pronoun".
BOSS: "Haha yes. Sally and Me. Thanks."
Gone are the days that I can practice using those mellifluous words on people who not only appreciate, but understand what I'm saying...ambrosial, burgeon, evanescent, ineffable, nefarious, sagacious. Now, this is NOT to say that I've mastered the English language. In fact, my grasp of the English language is tenuous at best, with my mother gently pointing out scenarios where I may understand the definition of a word, but not the nuance. Well, my mother isn't here, so who's going to correct me?!
I'll keep my rant short, but I feel as if I've lost half of the knowledge that I worked so hard to attain throughout my education. Those fun days of running through stacked index cards, begging me to learn their definitions, are over a decade gone. In fact, if I didn't mind having an allergy attack, I would pull the stack out of the tack-thin rubber band that's holding them together in some corner of the basement and breathe new life into them.
I have to end this blog now, as I'm at work, and technically should be doing or learning something. My boss is calling me...
BOSS "Kristen, can you invite the other Managers and I to the meeting?"
ME: "Managers and...oh NEVERMIND!"
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I think I can find those old vocab cards for you. I believe they are right under the book titled, How to Succeed in the Work Place: Rule #1, Never Correct your Boss. Also, just because you can't see her doesn't mean that your mother in not around.
ReplyDelete- Lizard