Word

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Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

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 – Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
 – An Essay on Criticism [1711], pt. II, l. 109

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?

I bought one of those Word-A-Day calendars to improve my vocabulary for college.

reify – to regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.

The >>Word of the Day<< today over at dictionary.com is >>oblation<<.

>>Oblation<< comes from the past participle form of the Latin verb* >>offerre<< meaning >>to bring<<.

So, an oblation is an offering or a gift.

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* A Latin verb is traditionally cited by giving four forms, in this case: offero, offerre, obtuli, oblatum.

A word after a word after a word is power.

(Margaret Atwood)

Words are like prodigies. They may want to stay inside where it is safe and warm but they'll never live if they never play outside...and find themselves lost in the cold.

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We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

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 – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
 – Sand and Foam [1926]

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

(Mark Twain)

In the beginning was the word, and the word was 32 bits.

'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word, and caution is the act.'

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

“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.

Spaces define which letters to together to make up a word.

And then some more words come along and a paragraph is born.