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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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]

Words derive their meaning from the surrounding words, just as human beings derive their meaning from interacting with other humans around them.

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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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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

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.

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

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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

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?

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

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

The word is powerless yet powerful. The word can be a mere 8 bits, or the flame that burns a city to the ground. Words sting, caress, re-assure, and destruct.

We become wordsmiths innately, learning language before we learn to walk or talk. And still, we continue our development, our love affair with words, until the day we die.

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

(Mark Twain)

A word after a word after a word is power.

(Margaret Atwood)