Gown and other words

Mom & I in our gowns

For inspiration, I flipped to page 29 of book three of Game of Thrones (still unread and unwatched… I know, I need to get on it). I saw the word gown and closed the book.

I have no context for this word as it relates to the book, but started thinking that we have so many words in our head that are rarely used. Gown being one of them.

Ubiquitous, nebulous, shorn, chaise, contrary, theorem are all words that we might hear, rarely use, possibly even know how to spell and can define them but choose not to use them in conversation. There have to be thousands of words just jumping around in our brain waiting for an appropriate time to come into action. Sometimes inappropriate time…

Most of these words have very specific uses. Unless you are operating a sheep farm, the word shorn rarely comes up.

But gown. There was a time that the word gown would have pebbled conversation the same way yoga pants does today. Just watch an episode of Downton Abbey and you can think of many times it would be used on a daily basis.

Now we use the word dress. Even bridesmaids are more apt to say they are wearing a dress versus a gown, even though the latter is more accurate. We almost exclusively use the word gown to describe brides’ attire (even though the show says ‘Say Yes to the Dress’). Gown differentiates the bride from the guests. The utterance of the word establishes the bride’s importance in the room.

I had recent need to purchase a gown for my brother’s formal wedding in Mexico City. I quite enjoyed asking for, talking about and wearing my new gown. If I had talked about my gown as a dress, I am not sure it would have been as much fun to wear. The word gown pulled my shoulders back, made me feel pretty and made me think of the occasion in a different light. Then the tequila came out and all bets were off.

The power of words. They can change a mood, a perspective, an insight, a day. I try to choose my words carefully (not so much in conversation as I do suffer from a bit of verbal diarrhea. The doctor says it’s chronic so I am stuck with it). It would be interesting to see how few different words I choose on a daily basis.

Interesting stats: I used the word ‘word’ 19 times in this post alone. I used the f word zero times in this post even though the first draft had it in the third paragraph.


Comments

  1. Very thought provoking (is that the right word?) post. And you and your mom look beautiful in your GOWNS! 🙂

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