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.

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.

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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]

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

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

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.

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

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...

The web of words wraps round the whole wide world, concealing the secret numbers underneath.

1001 1001 0110 1001 1010 1001

mortar my words
with particles
prepositions
adverbs
and conjunctions

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 think that Word is one of these strange softwares that can do anything except what you think it can do. It's not possible to write with this thing, but you can spend your day goofing with toolbars or including all types of spreadsheets or multimedia or even use it as the worst HTML-Editor ever.

I prefer ASCII, really.