I love words! Some words feel good in your mouth when you say them. Some trip off your tongue, they can't wait to get out. Some words make you stumble when you try to say them. Some words make you laugh when you hear them. And some words, very special words, spark profound feeling in your soul. These special words are attached to memories and thoughts, to emotion and experience. Words are beautiful and encompass more than the simplicity of their letters and their respective arrangements.
I love learning new words, revisiting old words and learning more about both new and old words.There is something delightfully magical about definitions. They open new vistas and widen horizons. Learning the etymology of a word allows you to glimpse the past as though in a snapshot; something that captures a moment in time.
Once you learn a word it never goes completely away. It is a gift you hold forever; just when you have forgotten it, you come across it in a book or conversation, and there it is, waiting for you again. Like a childhood treasure you unexpectedly come across in a long forgotten box, a little dusty, a little worn, a little forgotten, it comes back to you with the shiny, sparkly newness of old.
Some are words are fun and evoke childlike memories of Easters and running with laughter and family and friends; a word like "hippity hop". Some words feel good in the forming like "smother" and draw a picture that makes you whets your appetite for rich ice cream smothered in warm, gooey hot fudge. Some words are simple and short, mundane words: "I do"; profound in their simplicity they bind people in vows of companionship, honor, integrity and duty. Strung together in a phrase, the words "wall", "tear", "this" and "down" became "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." A simple phrase made of simple words that changed the world.
Words are powerful beyond measure and have been used to spark creation: "Let there be light." Words worship: "As the deer panteth for the water so my soul longeth after you." Words decry in fist shaking defiance and beg in knee bent pleading. Words blaspheme and pray. Words stroke ego and humble haughtiness. Words cast down and lift up. Words close minds, open eyes, bar entry, throw wide the doors.
Words inspire imagination, draw pictures and, when they're written with sparklers, make the young smile with the magic they hold in their hands and the old(er) smile with delight for the joy they see on their little ones faces and memories of themselves when they too wrote with magic in the sky.
Words are confusing and apt, misspelled, ridicuously long and absurdly short, phonetically challenging, dull and overlooked... beautiful. They make up spelling lists (childhood's bane), grocery lists (adulthood's mundane), spelling bee lists (viewer's confusion), wishlists (buyer's economic infusion). They create poetry; "The Road Not Taken", "I Hear America Singing", "The Women Who Went to the Field", "City", "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Cow".
Words reveal this, my meager thought. They reveal my stupidity and my profundity. They reveal my baseness and my integrity. They reveal my flaws and my perfections. They reveal me; and that is why I revel and cringe in words.
I love learning new words, revisiting old words and learning more about both new and old words.There is something delightfully magical about definitions. They open new vistas and widen horizons. Learning the etymology of a word allows you to glimpse the past as though in a snapshot; something that captures a moment in time.
Once you learn a word it never goes completely away. It is a gift you hold forever; just when you have forgotten it, you come across it in a book or conversation, and there it is, waiting for you again. Like a childhood treasure you unexpectedly come across in a long forgotten box, a little dusty, a little worn, a little forgotten, it comes back to you with the shiny, sparkly newness of old.
Some are words are fun and evoke childlike memories of Easters and running with laughter and family and friends; a word like "hippity hop". Some words feel good in the forming like "smother" and draw a picture that makes you whets your appetite for rich ice cream smothered in warm, gooey hot fudge. Some words are simple and short, mundane words: "I do"; profound in their simplicity they bind people in vows of companionship, honor, integrity and duty. Strung together in a phrase, the words "wall", "tear", "this" and "down" became "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." A simple phrase made of simple words that changed the world.
Words are powerful beyond measure and have been used to spark creation: "Let there be light." Words worship: "As the deer panteth for the water so my soul longeth after you." Words decry in fist shaking defiance and beg in knee bent pleading. Words blaspheme and pray. Words stroke ego and humble haughtiness. Words cast down and lift up. Words close minds, open eyes, bar entry, throw wide the doors.
Words inspire imagination, draw pictures and, when they're written with sparklers, make the young smile with the magic they hold in their hands and the old(er) smile with delight for the joy they see on their little ones faces and memories of themselves when they too wrote with magic in the sky.
Words are confusing and apt, misspelled, ridicuously long and absurdly short, phonetically challenging, dull and overlooked... beautiful. They make up spelling lists (childhood's bane), grocery lists (adulthood's mundane), spelling bee lists (viewer's confusion), wishlists (buyer's economic infusion). They create poetry; "The Road Not Taken", "I Hear America Singing", "The Women Who Went to the Field", "City", "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Cow".
Words reveal this, my meager thought. They reveal my stupidity and my profundity. They reveal my baseness and my integrity. They reveal my flaws and my perfections. They reveal me; and that is why I revel and cringe in words.
1 comment:
I look forward to a compilation of your works. I do believe that Gifts are bestowed and you my friend, has been given one of the greatest.
I so enjoyed this post, and as I 'checked'...I look forward to 'reading this book'.
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