Is it helpful or harmful to make my son use words?

My LO is 16 mo and he has a little temper on him and is very very clingy with me. If he is upset he SCREAM cries and won’t let up, if I leave him to cry in his crib or something for less than five minutes he will end up with breathing spasms for the next 20 mins from getting so worked up. He is great at communicating but his words will come and go. He would much rather point or cry or grunt than use his words to tell me what he wants. He will use a word for a few weeks then will drop it and it’s like he forgot how to say it. He is stubborn and will not let up if he wants something. All this is very different than my firstborn especially not wanting to use his words all the time or dropping words he once had. He still uses enough words that he’s not behind but I’m getting so tired of him screaming at me all day about everything. When he wants me to hold him (which is basically all day) he comes at cries at my feet throwing a fit until I pick him up. I feel now he’s getting older I’ll start working on some tantrum stuff with him so today I started talking to him until he settled down before I picked him up and not picking him up until he stopped crying. But I have also been trying to get him to use his words before I give him things. Words I know he has said and he just refuses a lot of the time or he will make a different sound instead, like I’ll say you want this? Tell mama you want this (he used to say this while he would point at things) and he will nod yes or throw out a noise like “nah!”. Speech came so naturally to my first I’m just not sure what will help or hurt him because I feel like if I don’t push him he will just keep grunting and screaming at me for things. I’ll add that all his development so far is on track or ahead of his age. Any advice?