You taught me, now it's time to teach myself.

Growing up, I was mainly around my sister and cousin. My sister uses profanity heavily. I think over the years, from being around her and others who cursed constantly, I just picked up on it fairly easily. Thinking about it, I really feel that my parents had a lot to do with my cursing habits as well because my mother curses more than a sailor on a great day! With my mother cursing so much, I developed some of her talking patterns. When I got around my friends and certain family members, it was almost as if I have no filter to my “special” vocabulary.

As I entered middle school, I started to develop a vocabulary outside of my usual AAVE (African American Vernacular English). Some noticed that I started to speak more "proper" and used bigger words that most did not understand. A great majority of my friends had to pull out a dictionary when I was speaking because they did not understand the words I was using. At that point in my life, I was really focused and determined in school, thanks to my wonder English teachers.

When I entered high school, a lot of my focus and determination was gone. A lot of my vocabulary and love for learning new words started diminishing as the days went by. I felt I no longer stood out from the other students, so I went back what I knew and that was my AAV English. Now that I'm trying to get a job in a more professional setting, I wish I would have stayed in school and continued to build my vocabulary. I'm very happy to say that my passion for learning new words is slowly coming back to me.