Words are sounds. Sounds which can be harsh or gentle, hard or soft, pleasurable or amusing. Some words are poetic, some functional.

Onomatopoeic words have a sonorous effect on the ears. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘The Princess, Come down o Maid’ has two wonderful lines. 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms

The murmuring of innumerable bees. 

The doves and bees are there in your mind’s eye instantly, with a warm summer’s day. English is rich in onomatopoeic words. Swoosh and splash tell you what the water is doing. The variety of sounds we have to describe the speech of a cat all echo the animal’s. 

Another group which is fun is alliteration. Every child enjoys playing with words like ‘Peter Piper picked a pickled pepper’ and getting in a muddle.  It can also be great help in trying to remember an awkward item for an exam.

Mnemonics is a useful word with a useful function.  If only it was easy to spell. The colors of the rainbow give various ideas.  Richard of York gave battle in vain, or Roy G. Biv. The first is more elegant.

There are words we only use in one form.  No one ever says someone is ruth.  It’s always ruthless.  No person ever lists although ships might, but people can be listless. Hapless is another.  Reckless and feckless are commonish but the first part on it’s own is rare. Any way why do they all end in less. More ruthless is nonsense yet it’s not.

Some words, regardless of their meaning, have an attractive sound.  Recidivist and relict are two.  Reoffending criminals and widows are not the first things that come to mind with these words.

Our language is rich, subtle and varied.  With words borrowed from a number of other’s, we have made it probably the simplest language in the world but also one of the most complex. It is a language which can express the elegance of a scientific experiment, declare love gracefully and be extremely crude on occasion. Perhaps it reflects the complexity of the apparently chilly English.

The Overkill Explainer-This talk a loter likes the word because. This person will share their useful piece of information that is pertinent to the conversation or question, then proceed to say elaborate as to why, and then further explain the first why. I may say to the human resource director, “Are the bills finished so I can postage them and send them out?” She replies “they are not ready yet.” This is an adequate response. Then she replies “Because I have to get them signed by the director and he hasn’t signed them yet.” This response, though unnecessary is okay too. But then she says “I tried to give them to him earlier but he was in a meeting so I had to wait then I got all these phone calls from insurance companies wanting me to do stuff for them then I has to go to the bathroom but I found the door was locked again *exasperated sigh here* so I had to go back to my office and get a key so I could unlock the bathroom door and go to the bathroom and then I came back and the director still had not signed them, so I don’t know, I never have enough time in my day to finish things…I just don’t know.” I know. I think she does have the time to get everything done in time; she just fills her day up with her habit of combining pointless details with bad story telling.

The Out Shiner-this person is also commonly labeled an interrupter because he cannot seem to hear out another’s story or impressive facts before he has something better to surpass his competitor. It is unconscious, of course, this outdoing of the other person, but we have all heard it, and we have all been a part of it at some point. I cannot express to you my disappointment in both persons involved in this type of conversation. One will say something that seeks the attention and approval of another person to say, “wow!” But the other person has a better story, so he thinks, so he makes a bigger “wow” deserving statement and pauses for the impressed response but instead receives another story that has outdone his own, because the first party is still waiting for their deserved “wow!” But instead the out shiner trumps the first out shiner’s response, possibly even in the middle of their sentence to forego it with a more amazing story. Interruptions will begin to take place now, and so will exaggerations. The voices and eyebrows will begin to raise, not impressed at the story being told to them, but by their own. Neither is listening to the other person but thinking of a bigger and better story to tell for the next interruption break. This is not conversation, this is competition.

The Rabbit Trailer is often forgetful. They want to inform, or tell a story, or share with you a reason why, but in the midst of their explanation or story, they forget the end. They forget the goal that was so clear to them when they felt the need to start but now they have strayed and have become distracted, often times by their own thoughts. Repetition often occurs to place a bookmark where they are at in their story, while their listeners are left waiting. Sometimes, hopefully, actually,  listener will prompt them as to what happened then…or so what are you going to do, which helps the rabbit trailer to remember their goal and to feel the same urgency as they initially felt to continue their story.

A combination of rabbit trailing, over kill, and multiple details will cause stories to die, listeners’ minds to wander, and information to be lost.

The Detail Oriented-not to be confused with a rabbit trailer or the over killer because the detail lover really thinks every bit of information is important. They cannot bear to leave out a piece of information and so they become wordy and intense, focusing on every little detail as they share, unable to stay aware of their listener’s attention span waning.  The major point become lost in the sub points, and the sub points get confused with the details and before long the centrality of the conversation differs among the talker and their listeners; the listeners leave with scattered thoughts, remembering a few minor details very clearly, while some major point are forgotten.

          I have other ones such as the obnoxious talker, the lecturer, and the nervous talker, but after writing about such ways words are overused, I cannot help but stop myself for fear my readers will stop reading. Because although you can talk too much, you can also write too much, but that is an article for a different day.