Tunie: Great Big Words

About

A song by Tom Chapin. Listen to it here.


When I was a little kid, a diminutive juvenile,
I liked my folks to read to me, I was an eager bibliophile.
Now I love words for how they sound
And how they communicate.
Perhaps I should explain myself, that is, elucidate.

Great big words, I like big words.
Letter by letter, the bigger the better
Great big words. La la la la la la la la la la!

Now maybe you're adept at sports or excellent at school,
Maybe you're vainglorious,
Which means you think you're cool.
But give me a massive ideogram,
A big word to make my point.
When you can verbalize yourself
You can really rock the joint.

Great big words, I like big words.
I get a thrill out of every syllable
Great big words.

My word of the week last week was "unique"
People thought I was one of a kind.
When my word of the day was "distingue"
People said I was very refined.
But they look at me like I'm an alien
When I say things like "sesquipedalian".
But what, me worry? I can't go wrong
With a word that's a foot and one half long.

Big words are prodigious terms
Now don't they sound delicious?
They impress your teachers, confuse your parents
And make your friends suspicious.
But that's okay we'll start a trend
That soon will sweep the nation;
The hyper-linguistic polysyllabic speech association.

Great big words, I like big words.
No extra charge if it's very large, those
Great big words.
Great big words, I like big words.
Letter by letter the bigger the better
Great big words. La la la la la la la la la la !
(Reiterate please!) La la la la la la la la la la !
(Diminuendo.) La la la la la la la la la la !
(Grand finale!) La la la la la la la la la la!