Part 10: Expand Your Vocabulary
In the last edition of How to Be an Innovator, we talked about increasing our capacity for creativity and innovation by experiencing more of the world. Similarly, this week we’ll discuss how words frame our perception of the world.
Part 10: Expand Your Vocabulary
Remember grade school vocabulary tests? Ever wondered why we had to take them, and why we stopped having to take them? When the grammar school vocab tests were done, I naively assumed I’d finished that part of my education.
However, my high school drama teacher turned that assumption on its head and reintroduced vocabulary tests into my world. But the words were weird. Words like logorrhea (log-uh-RI-uh, n an excessive flow of words, prolixity) and farrago (fe-rah’go, n Latin farrago, mixed fodder, from far, grain, n a confused mass of objects or people; any disordered mixture). Cool words to know, but words I planned to never use in everyday conversation.
Why Words Matter
What could possibly have been the point in learning (and being tested! and graded on!) all those weird words? In college I was introduced to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and my understanding of words and why they matter was changed forever.
Essentially, the way we view our world is framed by the words we use to understand describe it. The wider our vocabulary, the greater our capacity for understanding, relating to, and responding to our world.
Words Frame Our World
Think about it. Where did you grow up? What words framed your world as a child? And now, as an adult? Where I grew up, the cultural vocabulary consisted of words like, ya’ll, brush,backhoe, football, cow-tipping, marching band, mashed potatoes, and honey.You guessed it – I grew up in the south, the backwoods of Northwest Arkansas to be exact. Luckily, I had excellent teachers who expanded my world through words, and the education I received propelled me to leave as soon as I finished high school.
Today my vocabulary is vastly different. If you created a tag cloud of my world, you would see words like creativity, innovation, Mac, Adobe, writing, music, blog, Twitter, art, theatre, potager, and organic. I’m a gardener, too, and my appreciation for nature is certainly rooted in my rural upbringing, but my view of the world and reasons for gardening have grown out of a much wider worldview.
Words and Innovation
Innovation is the creative problem-solving response for which the world is waiting. Expanding our worldview by expanding our vocabulary increases the words we have available to craft a response to the problems we are tackling. More words translate into a greater reservoir for ideas on which to draw. More words translate into a wider understanding of the world in which we live and increase our capacity to apply new techniques to old problems.
Expanding Your Vocabulary
When was the last time you took a vocabulary test? Take a minute and consider what words might make up the tag cloud of your life. How can you expand it? Please post your own reflections and ideas for an vocab-increasing action plan in the comments.
And just for fun – check out this list of favorite vocabulary words from The Phrontistery.
