Words

I collect words. Whenever I spot an interesting example, I jot it down. I collect verbs, adjectives, adverbs, all of them. I collect words gleaned from written materials and conversation.

My favorite interesting word is the noun minutiae (also minutia), the small, precise, or trivial details of something. I like nuance and gesture, two words that function as verb or noun, and influenced a scene from a movie. (Can you guess which flick?) I like lugubrious, though I’d hesitate to use it. “You look lugubrious today, my dear.” Why not say sad?

There are 1,025,109 words in the English language.

Aldous Huxley wrote, “Words form the thread on which we string our experiences.”

smattering
blather
pillowy
diddly-squat
thudded
gummy
mellifluous
blithely
trilled
chorused
dint
venomous
portentous
limn
visceral
rebarbative
indolently
groping
languidly
flotsam
…are some of my favorite interesting words.

* * *
The words nuance and gesture influenced a scene from Barry Levinson’s movie Diner, set in 1959 Baltimore. Sitting in Boogie’s car one night, Modell said: “You know what word I’m not comfortable with? Nuance. It’s not really a word like gesture. Gesture is a good word. At least you know where you stand with gesture. But nuance? I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.”