Fancy Words

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Fancy Words

Don’t we adore fancy words? Don’t we love to use them?
Still, it is annoying when some choose to abuse them.
When “geddouddahere” would do to tell pests when to go,
they use “begone!” to banish them in words more rococo.

Their need to parlay simple words, I fear I find most gruesome.
A tasty meal’s not good enough. They see repasts most toothsome.
While we argue, they asservate, assiduously stating
things that all of the rest of us are fine with just debating.

They see themselves as bon vivants, most clever and most charming,
They complicate the simplest words at rates we find disarming.
A lady we call beautiful, gorgeous, lovely, cool,
they find pulchritudinous. Where did they go to school?

“Piquant” they use religiously, though most of us denounce it.
Yes, we agree it’s pretty, but we just can’t pronounce it.
Slow music is andante, dark closets are aphotic.
As they rave on, each alloquy tends to get hypnotic.

What the rest of us get rid of, they alleviate.
They do not use contractions.  They don’t abbreviate.
They’re intent on gamboling while we’re just being silly.
They see the landscape undulating. We just find it hilly.

Forsooth, they have no wherewithal to get where they must go?
We’re all willing to chip in. We hope they don’t go slow!
They are extremely irritating, though they do not know it.
It’s not easy dealing with a friend who is a poet!!!

Parlay?  The prompt of the day is parlay?????

18 thoughts on “Fancy Words”

    1. lifelessons Post author

      I love the sound of it as well. And the way it looks on the page. It pricks us a bit, as does its meaning. I couldn’t have made fun of poignant as I did those other perfectly innocent words.

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  2. Dom

    So nice to read Your “opinion poem essay”. I was considering that many of the difficult words you have stated are for me (as an Italian) simple words ☺ undulating=ondulato andante=andante assiduously=assiduamente
    And we use them every day 😎

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  3. Patti

    This reminds me of my teaching days when I told some burly male PE teachers that there was an altercation in the hall. I received blank looks until I said “They’re going to fight!” They rushed out, saying, “Why didn’t you say so?” They teased me about it for years, although I guess they gained a vocabulary word.

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    2. Allenda Moriarty

      Delightful, Judy. With the exception of aphotic and alloquy, which Spellcheck just tried to change to alloy, the other words roll off my tongue with regularity. I will blame it on my dad, who was known as “the walking dictionary” and never met a “fancy word” he didn’t love. Pulchritudinous was one of his favorites. He would have enjoyed your poem, too, and would have immediately started tossing suggestions your way.

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      Okay, Christine. Now I have to look that one up. Reminds me of “Negatory!” What cartoon was always saying that? OK, dictionary-bound. I never refuse a challenge.

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      1. Christine Goodnough

        Touche — I looked up negatory. Sad to say, it wasn’t in my dictionary, but negator was. One needs be very careful to pronounce the words distinctly so ‘neg’ and ‘nug’ don’t get confused. However, I may never actually use either word in my lifetime, so… 🙂

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  5. Pingback: For Christine: Nugatory | lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

  6. Pingback: The Cure for Fancy Words | Christine's Collection

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