Vocabulary Growth

Growing up, many people choose or are required to move their place of residence. I was one of these people. While my parents were married, we moved a few times. We had to follow the job trail. If my dad was offered a job up north, we moved up north. After my parents' divorce, my mother, two brothers and I had to move again. From now on, when we moved, we stayed in the same city. All of this moving affected my language, on account of being around different people. This influence of diversity added so much to my vocabulary, in way of words and phrases.

The first word that I was influenced into saying, that I can remember, was a curse word. I had heard my parents say it a few times. I even heard it on television. I was very young at the time, so I felt that it was natural to say it. I did not know what it meant, but I wanted to use the new word. The day I was able to use it in a sentence is the day that I found out that it was a very bad word. A word that should not be used at all, let alone by a small child. If I had never been influenced to that word, I would have not known about it. If I had no knowledge of the word, I would have never used it.

After my parents divorced we lived in a very racially diverse area of the city. I had friends from nearly every ethnicity. One of my friends, Carlos, had a mother who was very energetic. She had a full dictionary of slang words and sayings. One word that I learned from her was knucklehead. Carlos was the kind of guy who was laid back, and did things without thinking. His mother would always point out his mistake, so he could learn from it. The time I was present when he made a fool of himself, his mom called him a knucklehead. I did not really know what it meant, but I had a general idea. Also, I liked the sound of it. Therefore, it became one of my favorite things to call people when I was trying to degrade them.

It seems like all the words and phrases that I can think of are ones that have a negative meaning. This is very true when I learned about racism. I was still young at the time, but the world was starting to open up to me. Racism was one of the things that I learned at that time. Unfortunately this was when I learned a bunch of new hateful words. At the time, I did not know the pain and anger that they could cause. I admit that I used some of those derogatory words. Using them made me learn the impact that they caused. That impact surprised me, and opened my eyes to the true nature of those words. I wish I had never learned those words.

I also learned very much from my grandfather, in the way of slang words and sayings. As my grandfather was driving back from the store with me in the car, we passed by a house that was surrounded by and iron fence. This house had a huge yard and was guarded by a huge gate. I asked what that place was, and he answered. Then he stated that it was for "rich b*tches and Vander-b*tches". I had no clue what he was talking about. When I asked my mother, she told me that he meant the Vanderbilts. She explained that the Vanderbilts were a rich family. I pieced things together after that.

I guess a lot of my vocabulary is imitation from what I've heard. To prove this point you can ask my mother what I used to always say every time we had pizza for dinner. When I was a child and was about to eat pizza, I would channel my favorite cartoon characters, the Ninja Turtles, and yell, "Pizza power!" Even today, I quote my favorite shows and movies.

From past to the present, I have learned many words from the varying influences in my life. My friends have been the biggest influence on my vocabulary. In second place comes my family. Finally, all the media I am exposed to bring up the rear. With all these influences, my vocabulary for slang words have grown more than even I expected.