As you know, I love verbs. I love precise verbs that sound like what they mean. Two students use two new verbs in their essays that I love: stultify and promulgate.
One writes that the repetitive and restrictive practice of standardized testing in elementary school stultifies and exhausts students. Stultify means to stifle, bore, suppress, and drain of enthusiasm.
Stultify even sounds stifling. It’s an oppressive, boring kind of verb. When I speak it, it makes my mouth pinch up like I’m bored of it already.
Another student wrote that he wishes to promulgate a certain policy change in the healthcare field. Promulgate means to announce widely, to promote, to broadcast, and spread far.
Promulgate even sounds like some important thing spreading out as you make that “o” and “u” sound. It a wide, formal sound.
At the risk of stultifying you, I’ll cease promulgating my obsession with vivid verbs.