Word

“Be careful what you say—you may have to eat your words.”

I don’t think so much about eating my words as about wearing them. When someone sees me, the words come back to haunt like a miasma around me. No matter how colourful my dress, bad words turn everything grey and muddy brown.

A word after a word after a word is power.

(Margaret Atwood)

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Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

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 – Horace (65-8 B.C.)
 – Epistles, bk. I, epistle xviii, l. 71

Without another word spoken on either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table.

We had words. Each and every evening.

Sometimes, when he stopped for beer after work, we had dishes and pots and food, too.

Have you ever noticed that the only difference between »word« and »weird« are the vowels?

My favourite word in the English language is »language«. However, if you gave me a slightly larger set of words to choose from I might have more difficulty expressing a preference.

The word on my mind right now is >>weekend<<. It's only a few hours away!

I can't wait to get away from this office!!

Words beginning with the »sn« sound in English are often unpleasant: snide, snob, snigger, sneer, snicker, snub, snert, snotty, snippy, snit, snarl, snore, sneak, snag. »Snow« is a word over which there is debate and even an annual change of heart. The first snowfall is almost always welcomed. Christmas snow is considered magical. But too much of a good thing for too long and March blizzards push »snow« into line with the rest of the »sn« words.

Which is more useful to you: a dictionary that tells you how to use a word or a dictionary that tells you how a word is used?

The old folks say that the spoken word is the garment of the soul. What man of true wit would clothe his beloved in filth and tatters?

Rotor is a fine palindrome, thought Frank Leigh Dearie as he ambled down the Lost Highway.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.

(John F. Kennedy)

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There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.


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 – Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
 – The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain [1952], st. I