Favorite Word

Posted by rjhmoore at 9:23 AM 0 comments
Thursday, August 21, 2008

It's hard to think of your favorite word. Off the top of my head I can think of the words that I don't like, for example, "scuttle" or "chunky." The fact that they feel so wrong when I speak them is probably why I think of them so quickly.

Words that I like are different. I say "words" because I cannot just choose one. They have to be strong in meaning and nice to the mouth, not some distorted word like schizophrenia or indefatigably. For instance, "presumptuous." Just say it nice and slow... pres-sump-tu-ous. It rolls off the tongue like a shinny ribbon off a cardboard tube and onto a present. However its meaning is not so delightful; rude and arrogant are just a few synonyms. Not as nice as a birthday gift. Unfortunately, it does seem that the shinny people in life fit the definition quite well.

"Juxtaposition." Try that one on for size. Not as elegant as "presumptuous," but more fun to repeat. Warm up your vocal chords and see how fast you can say it. Now say it very slow in a funny accent. When I first heard it, I thought that it must be a yoga pose name like the "Half Spinal Twist Posture" or "Locust Pose." Not that I can do any of those, but they sound similar. For such a unique name, it has such a simple definition: to put side by side to compare and contrast. So technically you could juxtapose yourself and a yoga buddy to compare whose in better shape.

I guess these two fine words are my favorites... at the moment. No doubt that they will be replaced by newer and fancier words as time goes by, but they will never be forgotten. They will always turn up in some dialog or another.