Friday, November 02, 2007

Wordy.

Colleen posted seven of her favorite words and asked commenter to do the same. I had to think about it for a few minutes, even though I knew right away what four of them would be.


  1. peace
  2. grace
  3. lazy
  4. blessed (but pronounced bless-ed)
  5. grackle
  6. Phillip
  7. cherry (especially when followed by “red”)


But I don’t think I could tell you why I like these particular words. Mostly it’s the way they sound and the way they feel when you say them. Peace, grace, lazy and blessed all share sibilant sounds…well, actually, is “z” a sibilant? I don’t know, Brenda will know but I am pretty sure it is. Grackle is just fun to say. Grackle, grackle, grackle! And Phillip? I cannot explain Phillip. It’s the name I give to anything that doesn’t have a name. I think I particularly like the plosive “p”. Cherry…cherry, that one is more about visuals than linguistics. I love the phrase “cherry red” which I realized first when listening to an ‘80’s song called “Midnight Blue” sung by Lou Graham. I confirmed my love for that later when I realized that Mick sings that his favorite flavor is “Cherry Red” in “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (You’ll remember that he and Mr. Jimmy decided that they would have a soda…).

I do love words, and I do love complicated and over the top words, but my favorites are all pretty simple. I’m not sure what that says about me…shutup!

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