A way with words

Dutch is not my mother tongue (neither is English) but I speak both. My mother used to point out the importance of speaking proper Dutch when I was little. I'm glad I listened and paid attention in school. In addition to that I was addicted to reading. (Still am, by the way, just not as bad as in the olden days.) I even used to pore over the dictionary at home when I was in elementary school. By the time I was 10 I was very into writing short stories (and quite good at it, too, judging by the grades).

That said, I'm not good with words like some people are. I am terrible at sweet talking (suave is not in my dictionary), and I'm rather blunt than fancy. So I tend to stick to simple and sturdy, but I appreciate it when others make an effort using big words. Like actress Emma Thompson. The versatile actress had to go out and break out a $1.10-word in her Proust Questionnaire answers for Vanity Fair this month.

Things were going along jovially, with a bit of Emma's trademark wit and good-natured self deprecation. (She called her “dimply thighs” the thing she liked least about her appearance and “cleanliness” the most overrated virtue.). And then, holy Shakespeare, out came the big one.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Uxoriousness.

Time to break out the Merriam-Webster again:

Uxoriousness: adj.
“excessively fond of or submissive to a wife”

Wow.