Word

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?

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.

Think how much acceptance Mary showed when she said:

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

Words are like prodigies. They may want to stay inside where it is safe and warm but they'll never live if they never play outside...and find themselves lost in the cold.

“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.

A word has the power to define, to bind, to create, to destroy. Truely, a poet has power undreamt of by kings.

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.

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

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.

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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]

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.)

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

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