Wonderful Words

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I posted a few weeks ago about why I object to swearing. Essentially it is because I don't like horrible, out-of-context, intended-to-offend words. But there are plenty of other words I love. Words which trip off the tongue and which are a joy to say - tributary, fluffy, coupon. (The Welsh words cynffon and bysedd trump them all, though. Welsh has the most amazingly satisfying words I know.)

Some words not only sound good, but have good associations which make them even more spirit-warming, "chocolate" being the obvious candidate. I also love the evocative word "Exogenesis", not only because it has such an exciting and mysterious meaning, but because it is the title of one a symphony by one of my favourite bands (Muse), and the name of an episode of Star Trek. "Epiphany" is another delightful word which is also the name of an episode of three of my favourite TV programmes - Desparate Houswives, Angel and Stargate SG-1.

The English language has the richest vocabulary (ooh, I like that word too, vocabulary) in the world, with over twice the number of words of its nearest rival, and new words are appearing in the dictionary all the time - much to the disgust of purist Scrabble players. I recently saw a quote which referred to "these troublous times". I've no idea whether "troublous" is a real word (troublesome, surely) but it sounds so nice that it really should be.

Since I work with words, I welcome them as tools of my trade, and rejoice in having so many evocative, powerful and meaningful words to choose from. I may even decide to invent a few myself. After all, Shakespeare did.

Comments

  1. Stephanie Black7 June 2011 at 07:19

    When I was a kid, I used to flip through the dictionary sometimes looking for cool words. Words are awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jennie14 June 2011 at 10:48

    I always thought it was sad that some of the words that sound so nice and are fun to say have awful meanings like diarrhea and pneumonia. Was there ever a kid that din't love saying expialidocious or antidisestablishmentarianism? Words really are fun; spelling is sometimes a challenge.

    ReplyDelete

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