a wordy week

Unfortunately, and slightly unpleasantly at times, during my commitment to expand my vocabulary, I found myself rather tongue-tied. This phenomenon is not new to me-when my employer, the mother of the children I look after, used me as an example to her daughters of well spoken english, devoid of the inane use of 'like'-I found myself in a similar position. Simple conversation, requiring little mental energy, suddenly weighed down on me like a burden.

By committing, or being induced to, a conscious awareness of speech, the naturalness and directness by which thoughts become verbalised, is lost. This dissolution of communication as that which relates, insofar as is possible, our mind's processes to others, meant that through trying to express myself more coherently, the flow was lost. Whilst intending to find a more effective way of conveying and realising my thoughts, avoiding the Pinteresque disjunction of much conversation, the outcome was almost the opposite.

I still want to improve my spoken vocabulary and use all the words which have made their way from the pages of books into my head but no further, however I'm not sure telling myself to do so is the way. This week, unintentionally, seemed to necessitate the use of the old proverb to 'Think before you speak'; although perhaps wise, I found it constricting, more fitting to an age in which repressing much of one's thoughts was necessary in much social discourse and exchange. The phrase's origins are French; 'Il faut tourner sa langue sept fois dans sa bouche avant de parler' which translates as 'One must turn the tongue in the mouth seven times before speaking'. The time it takes to follow this practically, which I would estimate at over 30 seconds, renders the original thought most probably changed, diverted, mingled with other thoughts and thus inauthentic as an expression of what was originally meant.

Before I become too tangled in language and the way it works and what it really conveys, I will end. Suffice to say that this week I have stumbled upon a bit of a paradox and I hope to find another way to use more words but not lose the relation between word and thought, that which I was trying to develop in the first place.

Suggestions?