I'm Just Sayin'

My favorite part is actually the last ten minutes of the movie and have watched it too many times to count.  Elizabeth is in her beautiful flowing nightgown and Mr. Darcy is in his fancy robe as they sit together looking out over the vast grounds of fountains and immaculately trimmed landscape that is their front yard.  They are discussing what pet names they will call each other in their new married life.  It’s a very sweet and innocent moment between two people.   I think I love this part because Elizabeth uses the word “incandescently” to describe when Mr. Darcy can call her Mrs. Darcy.  Only when he’s incandescently happy can she be called Mrs. Darcy.  Then she will know that he’s truly bewitched with her at that moment, a sort of code to each other.  It’s a beautiful word that I think I should try and reintroduce back into our “dope”, “rad”, “I’m just sayin”, “all that” kind of world. 

I know you’ve heard teens talk on the phone to each other when all these “words” come up.   If you listen, they don’t ever really say anything, but just continue to make their shout-outs to the other end of the phone.  Just nonsense if you ask me.   They can be on the phone for 15 minutes and if you were to actually have them tell you what they were discussing in English, they couldn’t tell you.  It’s just gibberish. 

Whenever I hear the boys say, “That is so cool.”  or “That’s just dumb.” I take the opportunity to remind them of the vast range of words they could use instead of cool or dumb.   I always seem to get that glazed over look or “Why do you always have to make this a lesson moment?” kind of look. “Choosing the proper words can say so much about you,” I gently remind them.  

I don’t expect them to invite their friends over by saying, “Would thou like to cometh over to my residence for an afternoon of splendid fun?” I know I would get the evil eye for a request like that, but couldn’t we at least expand our vocabularies to be more than 50 one-syllable words?  Yeah!  Right! Cool!  Wow!  Really? (Yes, that one is two syllables, I know.)  No Way!    I think so.  If this is the norm for our children, just think of our future grandchildren and their vocabularies.  Yikes!   By that time, we’ll have digressed from one-syllable words to mere head nods. Today I challenge you to use “incandescently” in your conversations.  You might get a look from your conversation partner, but they will be the benefactor of your vocab choice and you will get a chuckle out of their reaction.  After all, I’m just sayin’.