Word

Words beginning with the »sn« sound in English are often unpleasant: snide, snob, snigger, sneer, snicker, snub, snert, snotty, snippy, snit, snarl, snore, sneak, snag. »Snow« is a word over which there is debate and even an annual change of heart. The first snowfall is almost always welcomed. Christmas snow is considered magical. But too much of a good thing for too long and March blizzards push »snow« into line with the rest of the »sn« words.

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.)

Without another word spoken on either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table.

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.

Which is more useful to you: a dictionary that tells you how to use a word or a dictionary that tells you how a word is used?

The word on my mind right now is >>weekend<<. It's only a few hours away!

I can't wait to get away from this office!!

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Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

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 – Horace (65-8 B.C.)
 – Epistles, bk. I, epistle xviii, l. 71

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.

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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]

“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.

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There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.


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 – Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
 – The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain [1952], st. I

Isn't it weird that words work as well as they do? Think about it.

The old folks say that the spoken word is the garment of the soul. What man of true wit would clothe his beloved in filth and tatters?

And then some more words come along and a paragraph is born.