1 post tagged “favorite words”

What are your favorite and least favorite words?  Any reasons why?
Question submitted by Byrne.

I have many more favorite words than least favorite words because I really, really like words. 

But some strike me as distasteful, like "panties."  I really hate the sound of that word.  It sounds both little girl-ish and dirty, too prim if pronounced with the "t," but too low-class if pronounced as "pannies."  I just say "underwear" and leave it at that.  Other words I dislike for similar reasons: "belly button", "tinkle" and "stinky" for the more respectable "pee" and "poop," "pubic/puberty/prepubescent" - isn't that "pyoooo" an ugly sound?, "phlegm" - that's practically onomatopoeia, isn't it, and c*nt - just too harsh.

But I also dislike words that have little or nothing to do with the body or bodily functions (and I like plenty of words that do, just for the record.)  But to stay negative for the moment, "wriggle" grosses me out for some reason (while "wiggle" and "writhe" don't bother me at all.)  Now that I think about it, I don't like its rhyme "giggle" either.  I think I find that one just too hard to pronounce. I have nothing against laughter in any form.  I'm also not fond of the word "jelly," although I like the stuff on toast and I'm okay with "jam" and "preserves."  I think I can trace that feeling back to the first time I heard "The Night Before Christmas" with this description of Santa Claus: "[he had] a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly."  Even as a child, I knew that wasn't an attractive image.  The word "limpid" troubles me because even though it means "clear," I can't shake the sound associations of "limp" and "lipids."  The word "infarction" as in "myocardial" - it makes me think of "fart."  And I'd rather not.  "Detritus" bothers me because the correct pronunciation sounds so wrong to me.  (It ought to have the stress on the first syllable, short /i/ in the second.)  "Spelunking" is a truly hideous word, and if it were my hobby, I would fight to get it removed from all websites and newsletters and replace every occurrence with the perfectly nice-sounding "caving."  Or "cave-exploring" if you don't want to think of something "caving in."

I could write dissertations on trendy expressions - like most people, I really like them till I get tired of them, and then I really dislike them.  And they're very expressive of the user's personality, so it's hard not to have an opinion.  How do you feel about people who say "dude"?  Or people who end every sentence with "youknowwhatI'msayin"?  Or people who say the letters "LOL" out loud in conversations with people, you know, offline? People who use "um" and "you know" set off by commas in their writing? But I'm not EVEN going to go there or this would be the longest.blogpost.EVAR.

Anyway.  The first part of the question, my favorite words?  Where to begin. . .?

I'm a big fan of fifty cent words, as long as they're not so obscure as to just be show-offy.  It's more fun to say that something was "serendipitous" or "fortuitous" than just lucky.   I try to teach Anthony to be "magnanimous" when it comes to sharing toys with younger children.  Are you dissin' me or "maligning" me?  I like either one of those synonyms.  I'd rather be "stymied" or "flummoxed" than "frustrated" or "confused."  A gross thing - a really, really gross thing?  It's "vile."  When Anthony wants to get down from my arms, he doesn't "wriggle," he "writhes." 

The Latin-rooted words are wonderful, like delicately complex machines.  Doesn't "ubiquitous" roll nicely off the tongue? They "permeate" the language with their "armor" of "affixation," stringing "-ate"s and "-ic"s and "-ifications" along in their wake.  But the original English words have their own charms and number among my favorites as well, especially since they name so many "things" that are close to my "heart", like "word" and "book" and "child" and "husband."  Most of the English-origin words are so common and everyday that it's hard to see them as very interesting, but when I think about it, there's something satisfyingly sensuous about the word "flesh"  and words like "rune" and "shadow" and "dream" have an "otherworldly" air.  I once found a book at the library called "Word Hoard" and it was a collection of stories from Old English.  "Word Hoard" meant story collection.  I wish I knew more things like that.

I have to get to work.  Students come back next week, so no more long posts about anything, anywhere for awhile.