![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/213\/2020\/01\/dictionary-1149723_640-300x199.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI love words:\u00a0 new words, ancient words, musical words, jarring words.\u00a0 As one consequence of my love of words, I play word games on my phone to relax.\u00a0 I also love to play Scrabble.\u00a0 For me, our words – how and when and why we use them – reflect who we are and how we choose to go through the world.\u00a0 Words have power and impact and should be used wisely.<\/p>\n
I also love a good salad.\u00a0 Good salads are sweet and savory, crispy and crunchy and smooth, with a little acidity – a little bite or tang.\u00a0 They’re visually appealing as well as tasty.\u00a0 A good salad can combine unexpected ingredients and make something brand new, just like words can be combined in new ways to foster new understanding.<\/p>\n
So while the phrase “word salad” has negative connotations, I would argue that a word salad could be marvelous.\u00a0 As educators we believe in the power of communication to change lives.\u00a0 As educators, we have encountered word salads from our students that were not appetizing, but we have also seen our students put words together in brilliant and eloquent and unexpected ways, haven’t we?<\/p>\n
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Every January we hear about “words to ban” and “words to bring back”.\u00a0 Lake Superior State University just released its 45th annual “List of Words Banished From the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use, and General Uselessness<\/a>“, while Wayne State University just released a list of “Words that Deserve Wider Use<\/a>“.<\/p>\n Reading these two lists caused me to cachinnate, so after a period of perendinating, I resolved to write what I hope is a luculent blog post about words.\u00a0 \u00a0(In other words, I laughed out loud, I procrastinated for a couple of days, and then I resolved to write an expressively clear blog post about words.)<\/p>\n And as I start a new semester in a new year, I also resolve to banish these words from my vocabulary for the duration: quid pro quo,\u00a0 artisanal, curated, mouthfeel, vibe check, and influencer.<\/p>\n That resolve may be merely velleity, or it may be absolute mullock.\u00a0 \u00a0(In other words, it may be an inclination that isn’t strong enough to lead to action, or it may be rubbish.)<\/p>\n I’ll let you know how it goes.<\/p>\n I love words:\u00a0 new words, ancient words, musical words, jarring words.\u00a0 As one consequence of my love of words, I play word games on my phone to relax.\u00a0 I also love to play Scrabble.\u00a0 For me, our words – how and when and why we use them – reflect who we are and how we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-updates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/avpacad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"