Kris' Vocabulary and Style

Sometimes people have called me out on it, but there seem to be certain words I use relatively frequently. These aren't words one would use all the time, but I do notice them when I do. Partly because people have brought them to my attention.

vacillate /ˈvæ.sə.leɪt/, /ˈvæ.sɪ.leɪt/

1. (intransitive) To sway unsteadily from one side to the other; oscillate. 
2. (intransitive) To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another. 

I'd used this just today in an e-mail to one of my co-workers, and it was then I'd decided this would be today's blog topic.


simultaneously (UK): /ˌsɪməlˈteɪnɪəsli/; (US) /ˌsaɪməlˈteɪnɪəsli/

This is the one on which people usually remark, partly because I've grown up -- and continue to -- pronouncing/pronounce it the UK way rather than the US/American way.

Other words people tend to notice because I don't sound quite American saying them:

• process  /ˈpɹoʊ̯.sɛs/ as if I were Canadian;
• Internet (and pretty much a lot of words with "nt" between vowels): I pronounce the "t", so it's  /ˈɪntɚˌnɛt/ rather than /ˈɪɾ̃ɚˌnɛt/.

iteration /ɪɾəɹˈeɪʃən/

1. Recital or performance a second time; repetition.
2. A variation or version.
3. (computing) The use of repetition in a computer program, especially in the form of a loop.
4. (computing) A single repetition of the code within such a repetitive process.

Especially the second definition.

Well, I suppose those are the only few that really come to mind right now.

My pronunciation is pretty all over the place, generally. It happens in my Spanish, too.

As far as my style, I've unfortunately embraced the lots-of-thoughts-in-a-short-stream method. My French teacher would comment frequently that I try to say too much too quickly. I use parenthetical asides a lot in even semi-professional writing. I also use hyphenate thought streams (like in my first sentence) quite a bit.

I tend to be passive voice-averse; this is my English teachers' faults. I remember reading an article about passive voice structures fairly recently and have been even more conscious about it. It may be partly because one of my co-workers is a serial passive voice user in writing and speech; it annoys me a little because I come across her writings every day (but it's just a personal choice of mine that I try to avoid passive voice).

I rarely have short sentences, and connect my clauses fairly frequently in the most grammatical ways I can. It may be another symptom of my expressing multiple thoughts in a single stream. Equally symptomatic, it seems, is my trying to use a word in every iteration (there I go again).

I suppose that's just another part of being me, exploring what it is to be human even though I really dislike being human a good deal of the time.