Vocabulary

I have always loved words. I love to read poetry, and to hear the way the sounds and rhythms roll. I laugh with gusto over puns. I enjoy cryptograms. I love scrabble. And though I am not a great writer and I often make up words, or use the wrong word or misspell a word, I can't help but pour over words.

While I was in the hospital, I joined the International Scrabble Club. I didn't ever get up my nerve to play. After observing a game for about five minutes, I wasn't so certain it was in English, though it explicitly was listed as such. A bludgeoning didn't appeal to me that day. I assuaged my bruised pride by imagining that I would just end up playing some nasty sixty year old man who is sitting around in his boxers with his laptop on his knees and a vodka in his hand. Yuck.

I resorted to Merriam-Websters online dictionary. There are all sorts of wordy-nerdy things on there. There is always the word of the day. But my favorite is that there are word games to play. Jumble Jong is excellent - sort of like one man scrabble. Jumble crosswords are another of my favorites.

Then there is Word Drop. Word drop has the potential to be a great game - it combines words and Tetris. How fun is that? But Word Drop has a horrific dictionary. At first I tried to play to see how many levels I could conquer. But after that seemed a little easy, I made it my goal to score high points, not worrying about levels. I am disappointed that you can't use a lot of words: qiviut, swivet, jonquil, or even groat. Really, is groat that uncommon? So I was feeling pleased until I humbled myself with the knowledge that it is just a computer, made by a human - and probably not one that has a liberal arts degree. And then I remembered my sister, Bets, and my neighbor, Carrie, have way larger vocabularies than I do.

Never the less, I have had some enjoyment exercising my mind as well as my body now that I am off bedrest. Here are some of my favorites. Some are new (to me) and some are old. Some are fun to roll off your tongue, some are great for game playing, and some just have a funny definition:

swivet: a state of extreme agitation

callipygian: having a shapely buttocks

defenestrate: to throw a person or a thing out a window

qiviut: the undercoat of wool of a musk ox

jonquil: a plant similar to the amaryllis

ginkgo: an ornamental tree with fan shaped leaves

persnickety: fussy about small details

fjord: an inlet of sea between two cliffs or steep slopes

wuther: to blow with a dull roaring sound

hoary: gray or white with or as if with age

et: the past participle of eat

And even though I am glad that I can score over 1200 points on word drop on the first level (kind of pathetic, I know), I am interested in expanding my vocabulary. I don't want a larger vocabulary for word games, but just because I think words are interesting. So I am wondering, what are your favorite words?