Day 161: Words That Don't Get Any Respect

There are some words that don't get used nearly often enough in my opinion, and the reason being is that a lot of people just can't take them very seriously. I for one am tired of people giving these poor words so little respect and making it seem like my writing isn't very serious. It's definitely the reader's fault, not mine. How else am I supposed to identify the small pieces that connect computer devices together than by using the word 'dongle?' You'd lose all respect for my serial killer novel if a defunct dongle was the reason the victim couldn't connect to their phone via bluetooth to call for help, yet that's exactly what the word should be used for! Not fair I say. And what if I had a character that was absolutely obsessed with endurance training, and therefore probably needs to do some 'fartlek' from time to time to keep improving? I refuse to spell out that they vary their speed from high to low during training every single time it comes up. That's just poor writing when there's already a word for it, wouldn't you say? And why can't I describe an ornery old man as a 'curmudgeon' without people losing all sense of how serious his case of the 'collywobbles' is? I for one will never get over the loss of all these words just because nobody else can get over how silly they sound. You might call me a 'smellfungus' for putting this on everybody else, perhaps even a 'snollygoster' for trying to change the situation for the better, but I don't see any other two ways about it. The 'scuttlebutt' is, many people are starting to take these words more seriously. Lots of them. Just don't ask me who.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley