Simply splendid!

Am suddenly struck by what a weirdo I can be, involuntarily squeezing a chuckle out of the darnedest things! Just stumbled on this Ragan article about alternatives for the word “cool”.

Reminds me of the unintended beginnings of my love affair with a thesaurus. Me being a very ordinary-looking, uncomely young thing during my high school years, the least I wanted to be was dull & stupid – ergo I shunned words commonly used by my peers, including “cool” and “WTF”. It started as a conscious effort to be creative in expression then became a force of habit. Eventually, it evolved into instinct and became as natural as breathing to me.

I’m grateful to have friends who, despite moments of not completely understanding what I mean to the point of risking their dignity in asking me for translations, were encouraging – proud, even, calling me their “walking dictionary”. Same goes for my family of course. But I was blessed nonetheless, so it became very much a part of who I am & wanted to remain being.

Then I got into internal comms – a branch of corporate communications that compels us to write not just to inform but to inspire. Now people will hardly be inspired when you make them feel stupid, so I had to change my way of writing completely. To make it simple but classy. Once again, it started as a conscious effort and is now a force of habit verging on instinctive.

Now it makes it hard for me to revert to my old way of writing. You’d know what I mean if you’ve seen my older blogs! Hahah… But, true to the call to internal communicators, it’s not in the style but in the substance + brevity + effectiveness/understandability that we are judged.

&that, people, is the epitome of ‘cool’!