Words..."To live by"

To begin; the Oxford dictionary has over 170,000 words plus almost 50,000 considered obsolete.  The Mariam-Websters has 470,000. The average English vocabulary runs some 20-35,000 words.  I'm betting Stephen King's vocabulary runs well over a hundred thousand. So what the Hell does that even amount to?  To see, at least for me, I'm going to kick it around a little here.

Words:

Precede action; "I'll be back."

Succeed action; "We kicked ass."

Set the stage; 'It was a dark and stormy..."

Demonstrate ignorance; "Merica, love it or leave it."

Provoke laughter; "Shit happens."

Profess love; "...for richer or poorer..."

Clarify facts; "...the hip bone connected to the thigh bone..."

Convey success; "He made it."

Convey failure; "He didn't make it."

Express shock; "Oh My God."

Express surprise; "What the f___?!"

Turn up the dial; "I'm gonna' kick your ass!"

Turn down the dial; "It's okay."

Reflect history; "Four score and seven..."

Make history; "...a day which will live in infamy..."

Obscure history; "It wasn't an insurrection..."

Contradict each other; "Alternative truth."

Clarify emotion; "I love it when you do that."

Clarify emotion 2: I hate when you do that."

Express frustration; "No one told me it was a left-handed bolt."

Beg imitations; Emojis

Demonstrate apathy; "Meh."

Of caution; "Lighten up."

Mark a moment; "It's Howdy Doody time!"

Rewrite history; "There was no Holocaust."

There's more, there's always more but you get my drift here right?  I think words cover every single one of the bases.  Besides, what the Hell would we do without them? Just look at each other, make faces and expressively grunt? Well, maybe we could make a good argument for that too...

Update: 10/30/2025

I've been reading a lot of Cormac McCarthy's work.  I am fascinated my his command of english and his ability to make up words that often make sense.  For example, I am currently reading one of his recognized best novels, "Suttree." It is a visceral read of what some refer to as a modern day Huckleberry Finn type story. Aside from being starkly realistic in its descriptions of earthly things and people, Cormac loads it with words I have never read in all the hundreds (thousands?) of books I've read. On damn near every page, I could easily spend most of my time back and forth from dictionary to book if I wasn't a scanner at heart, picking up a few pearls of writing along the way.

Okay, that's it.  Just a little more from a world that tweaks my ever lovin' curious heart.