Is it just me or has there been a lot of big words being thrown about lately? If you have been part of conversations that seem sesquipedalian in nature, you are not alone. I can recall a time when I used a word and when I was asked what it meant, I had to take pause. “I don’t know exactly,” I responded. I was tasked with explaining what a word meant that I had used. Another young colleague who was part of the conversation suggested we break the word up into its roots. I remembered learning that trick in high school English class and thought it was quite clever. His trick worked! He had used “etymology,” the study of where words come, to help me understand what I was talking about.
Many of us may have been attracted to engineering because of our less than stellar grasp of the English language. I myself am guilty of not always knowing what I am talking about. You know, that condition when your mouth moves faster than your brain sometimes? Just recently, another coworker was explaining a problem he was having with a rainwater harvesting system. The collected rainwater was being treated and used for water closet and urinal flushing. He explained the system was operating out of spec due to high turbidity.