Word

My favourite word in the English language is »language«. However, if you gave me a slightly larger set of words to choose from I might have more difficulty expressing a preference.

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We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

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 – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
 – Sand and Foam [1926]

Have you ever noticed that the only difference between »word« and »weird« are the vowels?

LI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(trans. Edward Fitzgerald, 1st ed.)

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

(Mark Twain)

Spaces define which letters to together to make up a word.

I bought one of those Word-A-Day calendars to improve my vocabulary for college.

reify – to regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.

Words are the best toys you can give your brain.

'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word, and caution is the act.'

Spaces define which letters go together to make up a word.

“Be careful what you say—you may have to eat your words.”

I don’t think so much about eating my words as about wearing them. When someone sees me, the words come back to haunt like a miasma around me. No matter how colourful my dress, bad words turn everything grey and muddy brown.

Think how much acceptance Mary showed when she said:

»Let it be done to me according to thy word.«

Words derive their meaning from the surrounding words, just as human beings derive their meaning from interacting with other humans around them.

»Therefore« is a word the poet must not know.

(Andre Gide)