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Do you have a favourite word?

MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
edited January 2007 in - Reading

Comments

  • MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
    Someone asked me this yesterday. I was stumped; there are so many words I love (and hate!)
  • josiehenleyjosiehenley
    Antidisestablishmentarianism – I learned it when I was fourteen. It’s the longest word in the English language (or at least it was when I was fourteen). And I even know what it means as well!
  • MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
    Ha-ha, I do remember learning that too. I quite like 'onomatopoeia' too! :-)
  • Gary KruseGary Kruse
    I've got one but I can't post it on this forum...
  • JennyJenny
    It's impossible to choose - every time I look in the dictionary I find new ones. Sometimes the meanings aren't that great, but the words themselves sound lovely!
  • AnyankaAnyanka
    Sprightly.
  • M. WelshmanM. Welshman
    'Prospect'..... Those of you who've exchanged messages with me will know why <g>
  • TaffetaPunkTaffetaPunk
    It chops and changes, but at the moment, I would have to say 'fidget' - my cat is the world champion at it, and it's a great sounding word.
  • JennyJenny
    Just now it's Carpathian!
  • Jay MandalJay Mandal
    "'Slubberdegullion' - what a word" - Robert McCrum, The Observer. Unusual, but not hard to remember, and pretty easy to spell. Also the title of my first short story collection. Can anyone find it in their dictionary?
  • SmaugSmaug
    Hornswoggle - and I just love place names - Westly Waterless, Sheepy Parva, Cherry Hinton and Tarring Neville (What did Neville do I wonder?!) to name but a few.
  • josiehenleyjosiehenley
    Sheepy Parva is fab – I think it’s from Latin because there’s a Sheepy Magna quite nearby as well. I used to cycle there as a child and the name never struck me as odd. But since I’ve lived in Wales and got used to the sort of place names near me now, I go back ‘home’ to visit and find the English names odd. My partner thinks that Sheepy Parva sounds like a disease.
  • BetsieBetsie
    I love hyperperbole and litotes.  Can't find Dorothy's word in my dictionary - the Earl has foxed me.
  • BetsieBetsie
    Blimey - I stuttered there didn't I (senior moment again)  that should read hyperbole
  • montholonmontholon
    I love 'verisimilitude'and also 'Schadenfreude', if foreign imports are allowed in this discussion.
    As for place names, we have some Viking relics up here in Yorkshire, Osbaldwick, for example.
  • *SA**SA*
    mine is 'serendipity', because it's such a great word for what it means.
  • JennyJenny
    We used to go past Tarring Neville sometimes and I wasn't sure whether it was one place or two!
  • VericaVerica
    My favourite word is recalcitrant.  When I knew only a few words of English, I woke up one morning with this word on my lips.  I didn't know whether it really existed, so I rushed to a dictionary to look and there it was!  I've since thought that maybe it summarised me.  Another of my favourites is myriad and, if we're allowed foreign words, then la dolce vita and wunderbar. 
  • neilneil
    Mellifluous is one of those words that sounds exactly like its meaning - sounding sweet and flowing smoothly.
  • Island GirlIsland Girl
    When people from other countries visit us, you can bet London to a brick that they'll find a lot of the place names we take for granted, rather quirky. I think a lot of them are of aboriginal origin but because we've grown up with them, they don't seem strange at all.

    Just off the top of my head, to name a few in this local surrounding area alone, I can think of Wunghnu (pron: One Ewe), Tallygaroopna, Mooroopna, Gooroombat, Tungamah, Congupna, Baddaginnie and Upotipotpon. So howdya like them apples?
  • Crazy HorseCrazy Horse
    'Oxynmoron', but perhaps you don't lisen to toay in parliment
  • BudBud
    Smell-o-vision. Still.
  • josiehenleyjosiehenley
    I love Upotipotpon Island Girl! (the word I mean, I've never been to the place)
  • JennyJenny
    We have our share of unusual place names in the UK - sometimes as the result of a Norman name being tacked onto the original Saxon name.

    They're not as musical as the Aboriginal names though. It's all those Os and Rs and Ls!
  • MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
    WOW! I've learned a thing or two over the past days; I never thought such unusual and uncommon words would be so popular. I asked my grandad which word he was particularly fond of and he said, without any hesitation, "buttocks!" I didn't think I needed to ask why! Ha-ha.
  • starpandastarpanda
    My favourite is 'whimsical' as it feels just like its meaning.
  • JennyJenny
    Monkeynuts - it could have been worse!
  • MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
    You have a valid point, Jenny. Listening to some of the kids around where I live, I think they all have one particular word they're fond of..and I'm not going to reveal it in this very pleasant forum!
  • BudBud
    Is it Pokemon?

    Pokemon is a very dirty word.
  • MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
    Ha-ha, no, not Pokemon. I agree though...a very dirty word!
  • BudBud
    In fact, we're both about to get banned for even mentioning it.

    Webbo, if you're reading, don't ban monkeynuts. It was all my fault, I led her(?) on.

    Monkeynuts is a fun word, by the way. Just not as good as smell-o-vision.
  • MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
    Oh no...I don't think I could cope if I got banned from here! It's my new found friend. (Helps me get through the awful office day!) Ha-ha.
    Oh thank you for the name compliment. It's my real name too! Heeheeee.
  • MonkeyNutsMonkeyNuts
    Oh no...I don't think I could cope if I got banned from here! It's my new found friend. (Helps me get through the awful office day!) Ha-ha.
    Oh thank you for the name compliment. It's my real name too! Heeheeee.
  • BudBud
    Monkeynuts Mcghee?
  • CarolCarol
    Came across a word today that I really liked- conglobulate, and champooing (used in the 18th century to mean a massage.)
    Just can't choose between those two as to which is my favourite.
  • josiehenleyjosiehenley
    what does conglobulate mean Carol? I've got a blog which I call a glob (globules of wisdom) and conglobulate would be a fab word to use in it!
  • JennyJenny
    Still about words, but off on a temporary tangent ...

    There was an advertisement for Voltarol (a pain-relieving gel) on TV the other day. Isn't that the name of a character in the Harry Potter books?!!
  • CarolCarol
    Josie, in the context it was used in the book was from Dr. Johnson who was talking about swallows- 'a number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lie in the bed of a river.'
    I expect that word would fit very well.
  • JanJan
    I believe Jenny,

    You may be thinking of Voldemort who is the arch villain in the plot of Harry Potter's life.
  • JennyJenny
    Jan - That explains it! Doesn't take much to confuse me!
  • CarolCarol
    Josie, I meant the word would fit your glob, not that they should be sunk to the bottom of the river. No offence intended.
  • josiehenleyjosiehenley
    haha, no offence taken Carol. Yes, it sounds lovely, and probably quite suited to myspace. I may post it to my glob if that's ok.
  • CarolCarol
    I don't mind, and Dr Johnson will be unlikely to mind either!
  • AnyankaAnyanka
    As a couple of you have quoted favourite German words, I would like to add 'Auslegeware'.
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