Word

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.

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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

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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

“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)

»Therefore« is a word the poet must not know.

(Andre Gide)

on Mar 22nd 2001, 02:07:31, Natasha Jordan wrote the following about

word

Think how much acceptance Mary showed when she said:

»Let it be done to me according to thy word.«

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And how much courage.

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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]

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

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

(Mark Twain)

There is a purity in words that cannot be sullied by their use.

... words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe...

A word has the power to define, to bind, to create, to destroy. Truely, a poet has power undreamt of by kings.

LI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(trans. Edward Fitzgerald, 1st ed.)