When my granddaughter, Emmy, was about 14, I suggested we read “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” I had read the book years ago and remembered that it was funny and scary and very entertaining. What I didn’t remember was the language.
As Emmy and I took turns reading the first chapter, I was stunned by the richness of the vocabulary. Mark Twain obviously didn’t feel he had to simplify his writing for children.
Here is a sample of the words: perplexed, peril, ruination, guile, glower, sagacity, unalloyed, derision. And that was just the first chapter!
Every week I gave Emmy five words from the next chapter to look up and write into a new sentence. I could have chosen dozens and I began wonder what has happened to our language today? It seems so dull and boring by comparison.
Have we dumbed it down to text messages? I grieve this loss, which is more than words. It’s a loss of imagination, precision, knowledge, delight. So, I offer you a few words from Tom Sawyer to drop into your texts: auspicious, clamorous, cogitate, forlorn, insipid, lethargy, mirth, sinuous, solemn, vexation, wistful.
As in “I feel wistful,” which is defined as a feeling of regretful longing.
