Influential — A Vocabulary Story
The Sneeze that Changed Everything
It started, of all things, with a sneeze.
Otis sneezed in assembly — a tremendous, room-shaking HRRSHOO — and to cover his embarrassment, he flung both arms up and shouted, "GESUNDHEIT!" at himself.
The hall exploded. Three hundred kids lost it. And by lunchtime, half the school was saying "Gesundheit" instead of hello.
Otis didn't notice at first. But then Tomasz said it to him in the corridor. Then the dinner lady said it, handing him his chips. Then his form tutor, Mr Abara, muttered it without looking up from the register — and blushed, like he couldn't believe it had escaped his mouth.
That afternoon, Otis tested something. He started tucking his pen behind his ear. Just to see.
Two days later, eleven kids had pens behind their ears. The deputy head asked, baffled, why "the children kept losing their pens in their hair."
Otis sat at the back of class, electrified by a secret he could barely hold in. He hadn't tried to be influential. He'd just sneezed. And yet here he was, influential.
Influential means having the power to affect the thoughts, actions, or behaviour of others.
It felt like the entire school was bending to his whims.
He looked down at his pen. Then, slowly, deliberately, he balanced it on his nose.
The next morning, forty children walked in with pens on their noses. Otis had never felt so dangerously, gloriously influential.
Word Definition
influential
meaning
having the power to affect the thoughts, actions, or behaviour of others
synonyms
powerful · prominent · persuasive · authoritative · significant
antonyms
powerless · insignificant · unimportant
example sentence
She became one of the most influential figures in modern science.