The Word Nazi, part 1

I have prejudices. Lots of them, as I expect most people do, though they probably don't go around talking about them. Of course, that means I must dive headfirst into this vast and uncharted ocean of idiosyncrasies.

Today's little tidbit of disdain focuses on the word 'visceral', more specifically on people who use that word. As an English major, I value every word individually since each has its own function and use. However, even before I found a passion for English, it always appeared to me that only certain people had 'visceral' as part of their vernacular. For example, there was an extremely irritating guy named Justin who was in almost every club I was in in high school. If you had seen him, you'd have sworn that he was already practicing to be a politician--glad-handing and sweet-talking his way into his teachers/advisors' good graces. Granted, these were honor societies that included the school's most sheltered and elitist students, but he took pretentiousness to new levels. Every day, he wore a short-sleeved dress shirt tucked neatly into pressed slacks and dress shoes. Then, when talking in meetings, he'd talk as if he were giving a vocabulary lesson, using his practiced SAT words then explaining their meanings, as if we all hadn't studied the same things. He eventually annoyed so many people that some of the bigger kids actually picked up his little car (an amusing little facet of his otherwise irritating story) and hid it from him.

Anyway, the point of the story is that he's the kind of person who would describe an experience as visceral, even in high school. Now I'm all for being able to take an objective look at a situation, but I don't feel that the visceral is all that different from, well, anything else. It's like saying that certain emotions are less evolved than others, but that's impossible since all emotions are instinctual. People wanting to intellectualize emotions is what gets my goat, and I'd like it if everyone could just admit to being human and, by design, not having full control over themselves.