It's New to Me: Eruction

Came across this word this morning and had to stifle the giggle emanating from my inner ten-year-old.

No, it has nothing to do with the blast you see on the right. Nor does it have anything to do with blood flow to the nether regions. But it is a bodily function.

An eruction is a belch. Yeah, when you burp you’re having an eruction. Don't feel bad if you didn't know this; when I typed it into Pages (the Mac program) it underlined it, which is Pages way of saying "That ain't a word." Yeah, it is.

It’s one of those words that’s fun to know, but a total mistake to write. Throw something like eruction into a story and you won’t impress anyone. You’ll come across as a total d-bag.

There’s a professional speaker I respect, and he certainly has made a killing in his field. Dude’s made millions. I subscribe to his newsletter because he shares a lot of cool insight into speaking and writing. But . . .

But the guy has a habit of sometimes dropping a word into a paragraph that you just know is there for one reason: to impress us with his vocabulary.

Don’t misunderstand: I love to learn new words - like eruction, to be sure - and I feel sorry for people who live in a limited-vocabulary world. But there’s a difference between spicing up your writing with colorful words and just showing off.

And we can usually tell which one you’re doing.

 

Photo by Marc Szeglat on Unsplash