In the seventh grade, I argued with a teacher for 20 minutes over the correct definition of “irony.” In kindergarten, I prided myself on my ability to differentiate “they’re,” “there” and “their.” I distinctly remember losing a friend at a birthday party over an argument concerning the pronunciation of the video game Super Smash Brothers Melee. (It’s may-lay, not muh-lee.)
My love affair with words has eclipsed all of my former, present and future passions: build a time machine and find me at any period in my life, and though you’re likely to meet a different person each time, all of my varied selves will share a warmth and fondness towards the grammatical and the syntactic. My room is littered with old journals and scraps of paper. Should a fire ever start in there, I don’t stand a chance.
Don’t get me wrong, because I realize English is among the most difficult languages to learn. I don’t envy ESL students who contend with subtle ordering, irregular verb conjugation, and diverse etymological origins. I take for granted my subconscious understanding of English’s myriad synonyms and esoteric turns of phrase.
But at the same time, I cringe every time the Oxford Dictionary allows a term like “food baby” or “selfie” to creep into its ranks. I’m protective of the vocabulary I so often take advantage of, and the ascension of a term like “derp” from silly South Park jokes to bonafide real word status irks me to no end; I’m not against neologisms, but come on.
Still, I can’t help but love the way that the English language — delicate yet cacophonous, simple yet idiosyncratic — helps me to form and better express my ideas. An introvert to the core, I’ve never been particularly good at conveying my thoughts and feelings through subtle gestures or body language. Though, to be fair, I often exaggerate my words with dramatic hand motions, if only to increase the impact of my most important phrases.
Language has helped me to define who I am, and it does to this day. I’m rarely to be found without a pen and pad on my person, in case a situation should arise that I feel would be better understood when written down. I salute my calloused middle finger which so often balances my pens, and the ink stains on so many of my cardigans.
Punctuation, in particular, may be my favourite facet of language. It gives the written word a leg up over the spoken. After all, an implied ellipsis is never as good as the real thing. The period, the comma, the semicolon and even the oft-maligned em dash — each of these tools are like old friends, always there for me when I need them, and rarely asking anything in return.
My Copy Editor will laugh when she reads this, because she’s all too familiar with my syntactic preoccupation. It’s likely the final version of this article you’re reading has significantly fewer punctuation marks than my first draft — believe me, she’s done you a favour. I’ve read countless arguments for simple, clean prose, and I’m inclined to agree. But I just can’t help myself; there are too many wonderful words out there, and I’ve never been very good at keeping things short and to the point.
They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. My addiction is the written word — the best and worst tool you’ll ever have, capable of breaking hearts and mending wounds in equal measure. Ask me again in 10 years, and I suspect the answer will be the same.
