Come on along.
I love words; written, spoken, any way they can be served up. Life offers a veritable smorgasbord of words and I want to sample them all.
I’ve mentioned before that I talk to myself. These are not always full-fledged conversations. Sometimes I merely blurt out random words. It’s not Tourette’s – I’m trying them on for size. Lots of words are boring, but some beg to be rolled around on the tongue and savored like fine wine.
Signs are especially tempting. I sampled these interesting specimens on a recent road trip:
Sprinkle Road
Favazolah
Bridlington
Benton Harbor
As much fun to say as to play
The bee-buzz in the middle of Favazolah, the squeaky-crisp delivery of Sprinkle: playing with accents and intonations is music to my ears.
A few years ago, my teeny-tiny niece was really into teeny-tiny toys called Squinkies. As much as she loved playing with them, she also loved saying it. “Squinkies, SQUINKies,” she would sing-song in her teeny-tiny voice as she played. It made me smile just to listen.
The Phantom Tollbooth was one of my favorite books when I was about 10. Our hero, Milo, traveled to a magical land and found himself at the Word Market. Vendors sold words, phrases or individual letters à la carte. Milo sampled tangy Qs, crispy, crunchy Ks, and a dry and dusty F. I used to dream of hopping into Milo’s little car and going with him to the Word Market.
In a way, I guess that’s what I’m doing.
It is possible, however, to get carried away with word-tasting and veer off the path from eccentric into annoying territory. If I think I might be heading in that direction, I remember this scene from “Forget Paris” and scale back.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
I see the word ‘Saskatchewan’ up there. I lived there for a time as a child. Pronouncing the word was more fun than enduring its winter…
Great video clip!
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I bet.
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Reading this on a crowded train and can’t play the video out loud..Fiddlesticks.
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Love Billy Crystal, and William Hickey was a great character actor.
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Before I started writing almost 4years ago, a word I didn’t know the meaning of, would pop into my head. I love words too. Writing is a fun game of rearranging, choosing and playing with words.
I do talk to myself, but that has nothing to do with the sound of words. You’ve taken the word game to a new level!
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I do both kinds of talking to myself – for conversation, and for the words. Oh, and also because the little people inside my head demand to be heard.
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I pass by an Ermenigildo Zegna store near my office. I love saying that. It’s strangely soothing.
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Love it. I HAD to say that out loud, although softly.
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I think the reason I’m as fond as I am of Kakabeka Falls is because of the way it feels in the mouth. 🙂
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Ks are great on the tongue, aren’t they?
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This post speaks to me. I can’t get enough of words, either. Too bad lately I can’t come up with enough to even write a post anymore. But how I love to craft a sentence or look up a word in the dictionary. It’s basically what I do for fun. I’m sad.
And that clip! haha! Oh how I love a good dead pan Billy Crystal. Just watched When Harry Met Sally for the 8 millionth time over the weekend.
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I love that movie. Have you seen Forget Paris? Just as good, in my humble opinion.
And what you do with words is a national treasure, When Harry Met Darla.
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I tried looking up Forget Paris on Netflix and I can’t find it. I’m utterly flabbergasted.
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…but are you discombobulated?
It’s with Billy Crystal and Debra Winger. You’d like it!
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Eschew. Enough said.
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Bwa ha ha!
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Have you read “Weird and Wonderful Words” by Erin McKean, or “The Horologicon” by Mark Forsyth? Both are very well written and a lot of fun. When I want to roll new words around inside my mouth, like you do, I reach for these.
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No I haven’t. I’ll check them out- thanks!
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Such a fine line between eccentric and annoying, isn’t there? Of course, all in the eye of the beholder! Have you ever noticed – and I, too, am a word lover – that if you repeat a word over and over, it begins to lose all meaning? Oh boy, I think I am eccentric AND annoying. LOL!
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That is so true about repeating words sounding like gibberish. I wonder why?
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Love that clip! I had two elderly uncles that I use to take on weekend escapades. They would read every sign we passed just like that, as if it was conversation. Drove me mad!
I love to say, “Calla Lily”. It’s a tough one to work into a sentence, except for that one famous line.
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You poor thing! I sometimes find myself doing that. Then I think of Billy Crystal’s look and I stop.
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This post was splendiferous. Totally.
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Love that word.
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I remember asking one of my English teachers what her favourite word was (expecting some multisyllabic mouthful). Her response? “Murmur. It’s so much fun to say, and perfectly onomatopoetic!”
Words are great huh. I’m loving vuvuzela, tchotchke and inkling at the moment.
x
http://www.elodiedoesoxford.com
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It IS fun to say. murmurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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Poughkeepsie.
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I always want to pronounce that like it’s spelled: “keep.”
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For years I had never seen it written down, I’d only heard it, and I imagined it was spelled something like perkipsy.
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This post made my day! I recommend Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics for some truly gorgeous wordplay.
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Definitely a great wordsmith, and all set to such lovely music.
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I love the sound and feel of some words, too. Some are powerful, some are silly. The words we use, and the ones we play with, say a lot about who we are. And whenever I think of words I wish I knew Yiddish, the language with the most wonderful words.
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I hadn’t considered Yiddish, but you’re right. It seems like you have to be Jewish to say those with authenticity.
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My friends and I (none Jewish) were full of Yiddish last night: schvitzing, mishugas, schlep. Great words!
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Reminds me of the old Garfield ‘toon with
“Some fooditems are funnier than others” …
“Liver, not funny”
Jon’s voice: “What about cucumber and kumquats for lunch?”
Bwahaha
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I don’t know….some might find liver funny. But cucumber and kumquats are much more fun to say.
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I love words, too. Should have been an etymologist–or is that the person that studies bugs? I always get the two confused! 😐
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You know, I can’t remember which is which, either!
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Entomology = bugs; etymology = words. You weren’t as confused as you thought. 🙂
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Yeah, but I always hedge my bets… 😉
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Hey Girl! I know it has been awhile. Sorry. Photography had me SO out and about all summer and then, I’ve had to play catch up on processing them. I’m now slowly getting the best up on my site. I’ve also spent some concentrated time building the site up! It has music,recipes, photos and short posts for now. The long ones will come in the winter when I can focus on writing and not the gardens or photo shoots. I like this little piece about your fabulous affair with words. Nicely put! As a dyslexic with a maiden that is fifteen letters long, I’ve learned to overcome that hurdle and spell. Now, I’m obsessed by words! I like ’em! I try them on for size, too! I love good writing and am saddened when I see poorly written stuff, like a lot of the comments I receive on my site. I’m glad you mentioned that you talk to yourself. I do, too! So, perhaps I’m not so crazy after all, as my husband would have me believe (I don’t believe it but let him think I do…hee hee). I just wanted to give you a shout out and tell you I like your post on words! I’ll be baaaaacckkk!
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Thanks for stopping by. Sounds like you’ve been swamped – slow down before you wear out!
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Yes, words are splendiferous and tantalizing, sometimes perplexing, and other times just blah.
Lovely, Pegomyscrabblyicious sista! 🙂
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Earlier I crafted a long, involved reply involving “splendiferous”, but my computer glitched during posting and all was lost. So all I have to say now is, “Hi, Tar!”
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I become fascinated with certain words – like discombobulated, and lagniappe – and also street and place names like Tchoupitoulas (chopatoolus) and Natchitoches (Nakatish). And I love looking up words in the dictionary, especially if it’s the Oxford English Dictionary.
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My favorite is Merriam Webster online because you can hear the word pronounced. I would NEVER have figured out the two you mentioned without your phonetic spelling.
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I had to live in New Orleans to know how to pronounce those – and got made fun of when I tried pronouncing them on my own. 😀
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Discombobulated is my favorite!
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One of my colleagues recently had a great deal of difficulty pronouncing the word “effervescence” during a lunch chat. She didn’t appear to have ever heard of the word before. Needless to say, I was gobsmacked by this void in her vocabulary.
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Maybe she had imbibed too many effervescent alcoholic beverages for lunch and couldn’t make her tongue behave?
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There’s none of that three martini lunch nonsense at my place of employment. If there were, I’d have cirrhosis of the liver by now.
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Bumfuzzle!
How great is that word? 🙂
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Ha! C’mon – you made that up, right?
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I wish I were that clever, Peg! 🙂
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bumfuzzle
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Wow. I liked the comments almost as much as I liked the post! I think that we are all “wordies” out here in blogland, don’t you?
I actually love to make up words that don’t exist, but really should. For example, in my classroom I often tell the kids to biggify and smallify things on their computer screens. We also say “confuzzled” a lot. Not sure why, but we like how it sounds. It makes us laugh, I guess!
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I LOVE confuzzled. I am hereby adopting that into my personal vocabulary. English is a living language, right?
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Yes, and its constantly biggifying!
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My favorite word smock.
Favorite town, Smoot.
Do those choices make me smug?
Smock, Smoot, Smug. I too love words and the visceral pleasure they give.
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Now I’m chanting “smock, smoot, smug” to the tune of Three Blind Mice.
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The post! The comments! I’m in heaven. I take a little different turn in my self-talk. I have to say fun words in an accent. Some just beg for them. Like silkpurse’s “Cala Lily” demands a soft, Carolina accent. And try “Poughkeepsie” with a low register Russian. Or “murmur” in Gentleman’s British (almost as succulent as “darling”). Oh, yeah, I keep myself entertained.
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Nice to know I’m not the only one who does this. Trying on various accents is half the fun!
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Since I read this post while uttering the word, “Squinkie,” over and over again, I’d say I’m in the right company. I talk to myself all the time, but it’s just to let all the characters in my head air their opinions. That’s not crazy, right? The scene from “Forget Paris,” reminds me of my husband’s family. I thought he was the only one that read the road signs out loud until I rode in the car with his parents and both of his sisters. It was like listening to an improvisational Gregorian Chant. And none of them knew they were all doing it! As for my favorite words, preposterous tops the list, followed by crap, but only if it’s said with a Scottish brogue.
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I’m adopting “crap” with a Scottish brogue from here on out.
And when you say “Squinkie,” for maximum enjoyment I recommend raising your pitch on the first syllable each time until it’s so high only dogs can hear it.
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I love words also, it is possible for me to become lost in word games and the dictionary (for hours). Coming from a family of teachers, well word games were a natural for many of us and some of them were highly entertaining. One of our favorites was Balderdash, terrible game but with a bunch of wordies, funny as could be.
By the way, it is okay to talk to yourself, fine to answer also, so long as the answer isn’t ‘huh’.
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I have an old dictionary that belonged to my father-in-law. He was the most dedicated wordsmith I ever met. When I look up words I find his little notes on various words – it makes me smile.
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I was over the moon when life finally afforded me the opportunity to use ‘reconnoiter’ without it seeming forced, contrived or snobbish – sadly, has only happened once so far…. 🙂
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I like making up words, too, like “humilified” (combination of humiliated and horrified). I want to clap and cheer every time I read something well written. Huzzah to words!
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I LOVE humilified – going to start using it immediately.
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Yer welcome. It’s my personal fave as well. Besides, how often are you either humiliated OR horrified? Hardly ever. Usually, those emotions go together like a smooth operator combo. HUMILIFIED.
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