Words Under Siege: In Defense of a Rich and Nuanced Vocabulary

Good Lord! First they came for delve, and now they are coming for tapestry. Will constellation be next? I just read an article titled “ChatGPT is changing the way we write. Here’s how – and why it’s a problem,” once again casting aspersions on the use of delve, insinuating that its presence in prose—whether in an essay, school or employment application, or other work—suggests AI involvement. This article also raises suspicions about the word tapestry and other “stylistic” and “scholarly” words.

At this point, I cannot help but take deep offense, as it seems that any vocabulary beyond a third-grade level—essentially, a rich and varied vocabulary—is now suspect. As I have noted before, delve is not uncommon in my writing, and I often employ tapestry and constellation metaphorically. For example, I might refer to “a constellation of factors” when carefully considering a complex issue, or speak of “the tapestry of life,” as I did in a poem where tapestry appeared in both the title and the refrain.

Moreover, I have long used multisyllabic words such as verity, prodigious, exigency, modicum, sundry, and laborious in both my writing and speech, along with Latin and other foreign language phrases—all well before AI ever became a tool available to assist anyone in writing anything. Assuredly, those words would all be marks of suspicion today, if for no other reason than that they are uncommon to those less familiar with an extensive vocabulary—who seem to prefer the vocabulary and style of Hemingway (though this observation is not to disparage Hemingway’s vocabulary or style itself).

The frequency of these articles has become so overwhelming that the suspicions they plant have now ingrained themselves in my mental landscape—so much so that, while recently re-reading a delightful book from 1983, Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Discoverers, I found my equilibrium disturbed upon encountering a form of one of these now-verboten words—delve—used in a quote from Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794):

“Generally speaking, people have a very erroneous idea of the type of talent proper to the ideal mechanician. He is not a geometrician who, delving into the theory of movement and the categories of phenomena, formulates new mechanical principles or discovers unsuspected laws of nature ….”[1]

I momentarily pondered whether Boorstin or the Marquis had engaged with AI.

I fear that the article’s call to “write clearly” and to eschew all “stylistic language” contributes to the growing pressure to purge one’s writing of any and all suspect words, lest one be accused of literary fraud. This trend will ultimately impoverish poetry, prose, and language as a whole. The insistence on reducing language to its barest bones under the guise of simplicity and her sister clarity threatens to strip away not only the beauty and nuance that more expansive language brings but also the intellectual rigor it offers—more the pity.

Perhaps, if this trend continues, we will soon see an officially approved dictionary—quite slim, of course—purged of all offending words, especially those that are multisyllabic, scholarly, or carry any hint of flourish. Most certainly, this dictionary will exclude anything exceeding two syllables or requiring a moment of deeper thought. The end result? A homogenized language, stripped of depth and elegance, where the richness of expression once celebrated is replaced by a narrow, minimalist vernacular that leaves little room for imagination or creativity. Thus do the times conspire against us.

[1] Boorstin, D. J. (1983). The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself (p. 67). Random House.