Did you ever watch the rooster parked on a barnyard fence? Chanticleer, the famed rooster from The Canterbury Tales, announced the rising of the sun. Did you ever hear a young rooster trying to learn to crow? He had to work at it until he perfected his unique sound.

Like farm chickens, we have much to communicate. What joy it brings when we organize our thoughts and learn to choose the right words that are standard. We want to have variety in our human communications with color and character, humor and sincerity, polished and practiced to an acceptable standard.

Be Brilliant:

• Take your mind on an adventure studying metaphors, clichés, and idioms
• Enjoy hearing a few malapropisms
• Explore words with obscure beginnings
• Be aware of what others are telling you when they use popular terms that are seldom defined
• Review some verbs you haven’t considered in years
• Broaden your horizons!

A note from the author: I spend much of my energy trying to use acceptable language. I hope not to make grammatical mistakes. Since I grew up in South Mississippi, I have a sound in my voice that will never go away. Words are slightly flat. I love my people back home, and perhaps I hold on to a certain sound with nostalgia.

A few years ago, two people who claimed to be my friends ridiculed my speech. They called it charming, but they were making fun of me. I cried in private. Then I started trying to listen to M-W.com and studied the inflection of the speakers there. I practiced trying to say “walk” and “talk” in a way that didn’t sound quite so flat. I learned to say a few words in a style that sounded better to me, but I still had my Mississippi drawl.

My daughter said, “Mom, you sprinkle a few words pronounced with a different accent into your speech. It sounds silly.” Eventually, I gave up and became more comfortable with my voice, but I’ll never stop trying to practice standard language.

The recorded voices in the dictionaries, such as M-W.com and Dictionary.com, cannot remake an accent, but they serve the purpose of their intentions well. They are excellent sources of learning the acceptable way to pronounce words.

In Brilliant, you will find words and speech patterns that will add to the appropriateness of language. As you work on the words included here, please be comfortable with your own usage while you become aware of some expressions that could stand to be improved.

It’s like flying beneath the radar. Let’s look for that comfortable place where we can express ourselves without being misunderstood or ridiculed. One definition of genius is the ability to adjust to the environment. People will consider you a genius if you use language effectively without affectation. You will be brilliant.