An epiphany came during our recent vocabulary
building. I noticed that Tim had no trouble with
many short Anglo-Saxon words used to explain the
key words that we were trying to master. Then I
realized, as an immigrant through pursuing higher
education, the words I worked hard to acquire were
for passing exams and mostly made out of Greek or
Latin roots which books such as "Word Power Made
Easy" do a good job explaining.

But it is not the street-English people use! They
prefer short Germanic words and idiomatic phrases
to the Greco-Roman. It makes sense when one
considers the history of English, or rather that
of the English-speaking people. In fact, I detect
a trace of grudge toward big words in day-to-day
interaction with people, i.e., colleagues, school
teachers, grocery tellers, baristas, etc. They
grimace invisibly at my multi-syllable pomposity,
which I by no means want to put on, and often
rephrase my statements with simpler words.

It's very frustrating to have mastered Mr. Yu's
"GRE Vocabulary" and scored high in exams only to
fail to communicate freely with the English-
speaking mass. (It didn't help that we used to
remember the words' meanings in Chinese.) Superior
vocabulary does not give me the least ease in
tackling the simplest verbal exchanges with real
people around.

I was aware of the problem, to some degree. A long
time ago, I read George Orwell's lamentation
against coining new words from Greek and Latin
roots (Politics and the English Language). And
Winston Churchill said "Broadly speaking, short
words are the best, and the old words best of
all." I was busy passing exams and just didn't pay
much attention.

It's not fair to blame myself. I couldn't afford
the time even if I wanted to dig deeper in the
vernacular. But that's how it has been. These days,
I'm often amazed at the things Tim say, e.g.,
"That hit the spot for me, Dad" in a dramatic
voice after a nice tuna pasta dinner. So, 30 years
since I started learning English and 15 years
living in the West, things started to change.