Jade Down Under

Well apparently a lot. The word is pedagogy and since I took up my courses here at JCU the word has followed me like an unwanted companion. We, Canadians, do not use this word; we have no use for it. According to dictionary.com the word means.... **drum roll please*** teaching. Uh. Where I come from we take the less pompous route and use the word teaching. We have no need to use a word that the majority of the population needs a dictionary for - we speak straight up English. Until I sat in my introductory class I had not heard this word and in my 25 years on earth have never thought 'I need a word that means teaching, but isn't teaching.' It's funny how you never know something is missing from your life until someone with a degree tells you you are.

I've come to terms with this word and let the use of it roll off my back like the hard pellets of hail we got last summer. I flinch but don't howl in pain. However, I am sitting here (in my jail cell, of course) looking at my English unit assignment and one aspect I have been asked to provide is:

• details of pedagogy/teaching strategies. Note that this is the most important part of the plan.

Look closely, the Prof has actually put TEACHING STRATEGIES beside the word pedagogy like the word needs an explanation. Note to Queensland, if the word needs an explanation to student teachers should we really use the word?
That got me thinking. How many redundant or useless words are out there? According to the Oxford dictionary there are 171, 476 words in current use, with 47,156 words having become obsolete. Although I can't count how many words I use a day (that would just be crazy and possibly annoying for those around me) I'm sure I don't use anything close to 171,476 different words in a year; that's including all the profanity I know. That means that if I get by on my low number of words (whatever that may be) than someone out there talks a whole lot of pompous BS, or reads the dictionary in a conversation.