Scintillate, scintillate

I'm sorry I've been quiet--I am deep into poodles at the moment, trying to get something on paper so my boss won't string me up by my toes and dangle me over alligator infested waters. On top of avoiding said boss, we've got a full schedule today in Dudeland. We need to take fishtank water to the petstore to see if we can get more new fish to attempt to kill, then there's gymnastics for the little one, and I should see about moving my flabby body in some form of exercise. So in light of that, today we'll discuss using million dollar words in your writing.

You're probably wondering what a million dollar word is...well, it's words smart people use so that no one knows what the hell you're trying to say. Why pointificate with a word like fornicate when you can just say, "F#$k it" and get nachos or something fun. That gets the point across, right?

In the writing world, there are tons of authors using million dollar words to either 1) hide the fact that they have no plot or GMC, or 2) trying to make their romance work more literary by having a juicy dictionary stuffing word or two. They are both WRONG. I tell you, there's nothing more maddening than reading a great love scene and being stopped by some word I have NO CLUE what it means. I'm a smart woman, and you're not getting any brownine points if I have to stop reading your sex scent to get the dictionary and look up your million dollar crap. I'd rather chuck your book and read TV Guide. Or vote for American Idol. ANYTHING.

Stephen King in his book On Writing says something to the effect that too many long words is like dressing up your pet in human clothes and parading him around. I don't have the book at hand, so I'm fudging it some, but it was cool. Basically he was trying to say, "Long words are BAD!" and he's right. I mean, why use a million dollar word for something when the simple works just as well? The average American reads on an 8th grade level (SZ will be chiming in and correcting me here, I bet). So using regurgitate when barf works is pretty pointless.

Of course, Stephen King wasn't writing advice books when I was a kid. He was writing blood and vampires :::shudder::: so I used to go out of my way to use long words in my writing in junior high and high school. My goal was to frustrate my teachers by making them look up words from my papers. Yes, I used the words correctly. I was a smart geek, not a base moron.

For swearing, we'd get really geeky and use phrases like, "anal orifice" to get the point across. Of course, hollering at someone, "You anal orifice!" is nowhere near as satisfying as calling them the real thing, but at least you won't get your mouth washed out with soap.

So below is a list a friend sent me of phrases you probably shouldn't use in your writing. If you made these up and I'm guilty of plagiarism, my bad. Come over to the house and I'll cook you dinner or make you an effigy of Christ with my clothes eating dryer.

Linguistic Transmographications and Their Translations

1. Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minific. Twinkle, twinkle, little
star .
2. Pulchritude possess solely cutaneous profundity. Beauty is only skin
deep
3. Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion. Spare the rod
and spoil the child
4. Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be advised to
refrain from catapulting petrious projectiles. People who live in glass
houses shouldn't throw stones. (this was my personal favorite, I used to say that to my sister all the time. I don't think she ever got the whole glass house thing because Billy Joel came out with an album around then called, Glass Houses. She probably thought people shouldn't through stones at her Billy Joel album, which is true.)
5. Neophyte's serendipity beginner's luck
6. Linguistic transmographications obfuscate the obvious. Too many long
words confuse the reader