“Life is learning. Pay attention.” 

Great words from my daddy. He was director of the Orem Public Library for years, and my love of books and story and words I can probably attribute to him. Not school. Not a teacher. Just dad. Here are three of my favorite words. I don’t connect them with daddy, but I do connect my love of words to him:

Pithy (adjective): Brief. Forceful. Full of vigor. Full of meaning. 

I love this word because the definition seems to contradict the pronunciation. If I say, “Wow! I just heard the most pithy talk,” you may think I had heard something that caused me to fall asleep. No. Pithy is a STRONG word. Here’s two pithy lines from William Butler Yeats’ poem The Second Coming. He speaks of the weak nature of men:

“The best [people] lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” 

Pendulous (adjective): vacillating or undecided.

Great word. Not only is the word fun to know, it is fun to say: Pendulous. Pendulous. Ahhh. The word comes from the word pendulum. As we know, a pendulum swings back and forth as if it is undecided. Teddy Roosevelt had an opinion about being pendulous: 

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Cacophony (noun): Harsh discordance of sound; loud confusing disagreeable sounds. 

Another fun word to say. Although the word deals largely with sound, I use this word most often when talking about poor decision making. Bad decisions, bad actions, and poor choices make life cacophonous. Discordant. Confusing. I don’t have a quotation on cacophony (I suppose I can Google one), it is just a great word.

Irish author Oscar Wilde said, “Education is an admirable thing, but it is important to remember every once in a while, that nothing worth learning can be taught.” Hopefully this column hit its mark. I hope it had pith, lacked cacophony, and swayed some pendulous reader to find her own words to love. 

Sam Beeson is an English teacher at American Fork High School and a published author. His latest book, The Unvalentine, is available on Amazon.