Pulchritude

The Pulchritude Of A Short Sentence

X spoke always in complete, beautifully constructed sentences (spoken slowly, infrequently), always using some unusual word, a word recently learned, a word his listener had heard never or heard once long ago and forgotten. He was an innocent. He was not trying to impress anyone with his extensive vocabulary and flawless command of grammar. He intended his elaborate and indecipherable sentences as conversation starters. He was hoping for something like this: “Cool sentence. What does 'pulchritude' mean?”

People called his way of speaking “formal”. They were tempted to call it “stilted” but never did. Because in spite of the absence of contractions, the fully enunciated “i-n-g” sounds, the dearth of “like” and other filler, the complex and correct use of sub clauses and free modifiers, the sonorous delivery and nonthreatening eyes, his way of speaking was somehow often startling, surprising, compelling, even liberating. But listeners even as they smiled at him, even if his words were changing their whole day, mostly said to him “You're an odd duck, X”. Or like that, ya know.

“The pulchritude of your hair makes me think of sunrise,” he said one day to a young woman as she walked past him. And she looked at him, not having the slightest idea what he was saying because 'pulchritude' sounded so much like 'putrid' it seemed insulting, but the speaker was mild and smiling and 'putrid' did not go well with 'sunrise'. She was compelled to stop for a moment.

X, for his part, was disappointed in the sentence. During the previous night, while browsing through the dictionary's 'P' entries 'pulchritude' had jumped out at him. Hoping for opportunity he had constructed many elaborate sentences containing this fabulous word. Yet at the moment of need he produced this little thing and not anything he had worked on. He was embarrassed and disappointed with himself.

She said to him, “Cool sentence. What does 'pulchritude' mean?”