Monosyllabic

Why does the word ‘monosyllabic’ have a whole bunch of syllables? I’d make a guess at how many there are in English, but I’ve been dividing Hebrew words into syllables too often lately to remember how English works.

There are times when I get a great deal of joy out of being monosyllabic. There is a certain standard of social ‘niceness,’ which I sometimes choose to completely ignore. People probably think me a jerk, and perhaps I am. It is just that I sometimes have no time for a surface-level conversation where each person expresses interest in what is happening in the other person’s lives when neither really cares. Perhaps I’m being unfair to the people that talk to me. I’ll be honest. I don’t really care. I can’t care about all 300 people that come here each week. I don’t want to know how their essay is coming along, what their morning classes were like, what they think of yesterday’s chapel service... Oops, did I say that out loud?

Maybe I should just make myself a sign to wear around sometimes: Not Interested in Idle Chatter!