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.

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.)

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.

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

“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.

We had words. Each and every evening.

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

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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

What I feel for you,
I can't put in words,
language won't hold
my desire.

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds.

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.

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

The best way to discover new words is by reading a book.

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

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