People who know me, know that I am too much a stickler about words. I enjoy words; I like to play with words. I like a good 'play on words'. I suppose it began with my fascination, when I was a kid, with The Reader's Digest section,
Increase Your Vocabulary, as well as
Toward More Picturesque Speech, in the same magazine. Anyway, that affinity for words resulted in a fairly extensive vocabulary that was the sole reason that I tested in the 96th percentile, in the state of Missouri, in 1958. The test was the Ohio State Psychological Examination, and was administered to all high-school seniors, or juniors (I don't recall). I did not have commensurate math skills, and I had no exposure to foreign languages. Despite the test results, and an accompanying scholastic scholarship, I did not 'matriculate to an institution of higher-learning'. Okay, I didn't
go to college! I was a totally
green behind the ears farm boy, with scant social skills - or so I thought. Also, my parents provided no motivation for continuing my education - you may be able to detect a clue as to some of the reasons, as I near the end of this post.
Over the years, or, through-out the intervening years, I have taken many a chide from my siblings, and others, regarding my failure to
just speak plainly. I would very much like to do that, on the appropriate occasion, but, it is not necessarily true that those 'precious people' have always known when, or that, it is/was appropriate at any given time, to "speak plainly". I suppose it is appropriate when the words that are used are 'over the head's of the hearers, but, it could be an opportunity for them to
Improve Their (own) Vocabulary. After all, didn't we all eventually learn a few words more than we
knew when we were toddlers? When did we all decide that our cup of words was full enough? The key is to "work with me"! Don't despise the opportunity to learn. Much of my vocab. has been simply the result of 'osmosis'. There were, for sure, some mistakes, but, for the most part, words were learned from reading, and deriving a lot of the definitions from the context -
not necessarily the best way.
The congregation at a church we were attending - well, I had effectively
skedaddled that
scene, but was in attendance on this particular occasion - was informed that "
the Partons are word-smiths". The worship-leader was searching for a specific word, which I provided. My suspicions are that he had read an eight page letter that I had written to the senior pastor, high-lighting a number of concerns I had with the tone and direction of the church; they were in the
big-middle of trying to transform the church into a
Toronto Blessing lookalike, thus, his perception of me as a "word-smith". It was, I think, thinly veiled sarcasm.
From my early fascination with words, fast forward nearly 50 years. I recently became aware of a long forgotten personality. That person is an evangelist, name of Ralph Woodrow.
A couple of years ago, as I was browsing the monergism,com website, I sighted a couple of articles by one, Ralph Woodrow, I immediately did a slight double-take. Hey, I recognize that name. Well, further investigation revealed that he is indeed the person I suspected. He had come, as a visiting evangelist, to a small
full-gospel church that my family was attending - it was, I think, in nineteen-sixty-two, or sixty-three. The church was in Cameron, Missouri. He was, at the time, in his early twenties, and was a pianist as well as a preaching evangelist. Certainly, I do not recall the content of his preaching. Anyway, he, along with his wife Arlene, has a website.
I have not done a thorough investigation, but I think that the articles that are posted on the Monergism website are non-dispensational in content and eschatological perspective.
Ralph Woodrow has a rather eclectic mix of material on his own website, but, briefly stated, here is the reason for this article: there is, in my opinion, an immensely interesting pdf article by Ralph Woodrow:
WORDS. Check it out. I presume that you'll need Adobe Reader, which is available, for free, at the Adobe website.
Unfortunately, in the case of my own word useage, I am able to recognize the words, but they are no longer readily available for use in conversation. Many of the words have fallen through the cracks in my mind. My memory loss is, I think, most acute in the area of ready recall of words. Words fail me - work with me! Did I say the same thing twice?
