“The pen is mightier than the sword,” I heard, and throughout my life this always sounded stupid to me. While some intellectual fool is over in the corner writing angry letters, a crazy fool can just come up from behind and stab you! It wasn’t until I did some actual reading that I learned what the phrase actually meant. Throughout history, communication, words, and language have been much better tools for a society than war and violence.
As our world grows, so does our language. New words become part of the culture. Initialism words like LOL and OMG were such a hit in the text boom of the early 21^st century, you can hear people say these phrases out loud.
The other day, a tourist asked me to take his photo. After viewing the picture, the tourist smiled and told me my work was dank! I felt bad and offered to take a better photo. Apparently, what I thought meant damp, musty, and overall unpleasant actually meant great. He thanked me and went on his way. Words and their meanings sometimes just have no rules.
Whether a conversation at the lunch table or when meeting a brand new customer, it’s important to choose the right words to get just the right point across. Words to describe what you do like stupendous, precise, proficient, and versatile are tremendous words that trump mediocre words like experienced, qualified, interesting, and talented. These dull words are not to be confused with ‘bad’ words, but they are overused. Anyone can describe themselves as awesome, but who among us thinks they’re essential, indispensable, or authoritative?
Extending your vocabulary means you’re choosing not to settle for the simple everydays of good, says, or thinks. Take a chance on words like marvelous, asserts, or ponder!  I’m not telling you to go out and start learning 10-dollar words like concupiscent, which means vigorously passionate or parsimonious. You can simply explain to someone who’s parsimonious that they’re just, well, cheap. But to pepper in a few 5-dollar words into your vocab like foible, pragmatic, and candor? You might cause the next person you talk with to raise their eyebrows.
Allowing yourself to expand your vocabulary can influence others to do the same. Challenge a friend, coworker, or family member to increase theirs as well by:

• Picking up a book. The more engaged you are with reading, the more exposure you’ll have to uncharted words.
• Googling words or downloading a dictionary app on your phone. Heard a word and not sure what it means? Challenge your ignorance. The sooner you learn what callipygian means, the sooner you will want to use it – maybe.
• Playing a word game. Word games challenge you to think outside the box, and even help you discover the perfect word to win. Oxyphenbutazone will get you 1,778 points in Scrabble, just FYI.
• Striking up conversations. Talk with everyone, not just your friends that speak your lingo. There’s language in all cultures, all backgrounds, all forms of life that are just waiting for you to adapt.

Without words, your points aren’t made, your feelings aren’t expressed, and you are left defenseless against the tyranny of communication breakdowns. You hold the key to building up the words in your arsenal. Arm yourself with an open mind, a good book, and a variety of new words to use.

In this REMAN U article animation amalgam, The Video Guy advises viewers on the virtues of a vivacious vocabulary. And, you know, just the value of words and stuff. Comment below or email Andrew directly.