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Monday, September 23, 2024

Words I Love, an Open Book blog hop post

  

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What's your favorite word in the English language? Any other language?
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I love words. 

That's probably no surprise given that I'm a writer, but I'm a real word nerd who loves collecting unusual words and am thrilled when I run across a word "in the wild" that I've never seen before. I was that kid who actually liked the etymology assignments. I did a series of blog posts about evocative words back in 2014 for the A to Z Blogging Challenge

My first writerly love was poetry, in part because of the words. 

I am, however, bad at choosing favorites. You'll get a different answer from me every time you ask me that question, I'm sure. 

I love collective nouns for animals. There's so much whimsy in them: 

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But here lately, I've been intrigued by old vocabulary. Phrases that have fallen by the wayside over the centuries. I follow several different word-nerd social media accounts just for the delight of exposure to these words.  Things like: 

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And: 

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I also used to teach Spanish, and I learned to love place names like Tegucigalpa and Guadalajara for the way they feel when you speak them aloud. My favorite Spanish word is my favorite because of mouth feel. The meaning is rather mundane: We were speaking. 

Trabajábamos

So, there are today's answers. Ask again another day and I'll have a new favorite. I'm fickle that way :-)

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9 comments:

  1. It's interesting to think of old words we don't use anymore. You picked an interesting one to share.

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  2. Those are some great collective names! And I agree, some words that have fallen out of use are great fun.

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    1. Aren't they though? I love "got the morbs" for "feeling melancholy".

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  3. I love discovering old words. Ramfeezled is a wonderful one.

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    1. When I saw that word, I was definitely feeling ramfeezled that day.

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  4. Thank you for ramfeezled. Tomorrow, when my doctor asks how I've been feeling, I'll have the exact for it. (Not serious, of course, but it'll get her attention.)

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  5. I like 'Ramfeezled'. I've never heard of that one.

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