Vendetta….vengeance…. vitriol…. violence….vindictive…..vainglorious. I was searching for a word this morning and I knew it started with “V”, and I knew it was a word that had negative connotations, but as I spun through the dictionary of my brain, it occurred to me how many value-laden V-words they are.  So, today’s offering is like an adult Sesame Street episode, brought to you by the Letter V.

Not just negative connotations, though, depending on your viewpoint.  What of: vivacious, voluptuous, valiant, valedictorian, valor, vanquish.

From my vantage (ha!), as vapid (double ha!) a topic as this may seem, I find it odd that so many powerful– or power-related–words reside in one part of the alphabet. Vassal, vast, vaunt, vault (like one full of riches, or a piece of gym equipment you fling yourself over).  Even vehemence is here, a word that describes using powerful words (she said vehemently). Other word-words include: verbiage, verbose, verbatim and veracity. And one of my favourites– a word-word about made up words: Vernacular.

Verve, vivid, vibrant, verdant, vestige, vex (oooo that’s an old favourite)… strong words that standing alone get a picture or a concept started in your head… “It was a bucolic journey through a verdant countryside.”  Given my train of thought today, the term should maybe have been “violet verbiage” rather than “purple prose”. How about this one: verisimilitude?

“Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

Vertigo? Vice? Or how about vicarious?  When you WANT to do all those bad V words, but you watch somebody else do them instead… Vigilantes may vie to be victor…..Be vigilant, don’t vilify the virtuoso….. Her visage was breathtaking, but her gossip virulent.

Medical-sounding V-words: visceral, viscous, viscid, vivisection, vitreous, vitality…

There are so many more…  I will leave you with one story, at the risk of sounding vituperative (!!) I’m reminded of a colleague I had once– she was infamous for malapropisms and mispronunciations. In a conversation about enforcing a dress code, she made the justifiable point that some teenage girls would attract attention no matter how they dressed.  Unfortunately, while I think she meant either “voluptuous” or “vivacious”, another V-Word slipped in there and she suggested we keep an extra eye on the “Vulvacious girls”.

You know, it SHOULD be a word….