I love words. I love the way they look. I love the way they sound. I love to lob words into my mouth so I can enjoy the sensation of my tongue, teeth and lips volleying them around, with resonant applause, where needed, from my nasal cavity and sinuses.
Words are woody. Words are chewy. Words are scrumptiously crunchable.
Tolkien, famously, derived such aesthetic pleasure from words that the sounds of words, quite irrespective of their meaning, were what he found attractive. It has been said that the euphony of words took the place in his life that would otherwise have been occupied by music (in which he had little interest). The phrase cellar door, for example, Tolkien found particularly enchanting, and “far more beautiful than beautiful”.
I’m moved to write this entry because, in the course of work, I’ve just now encountered a word I find especially appealing. I’ve met it before, of course, many times: but it’s just so great that I felt it deserved a blog entry all to itself. That word is
which refers to the silica shell of a diatom. But who cares what it means? It sounds wonderful. That business-like fricative start, followed by a resonant roll of the ‘r’, colliding – oh, so soon – with the sibilance of the ‘s’ as it clashes with the hard dental ‘t’.
But wait, there’s more. After that ecstatic moment the word ricochets into a ‘u’ in which the word uses the cheek muscles as a trampoline to launch itself into space, landing not without panache into that last, lusciously lingual syllable with the slightest hint of an aspirant finish.
And all that in just eight letters.
Frustule.
I think I need to lie down.
Henry, it’s a lovely word. And the nurse will be with you soon.
Incidentally, could Tolkien’s enthuiasm for ‘cellar door’ be the inspiration behind the name of TV production company Celador? Okay, maybe not.
Pulchritudinous, indeed. Splendid.
I wish this word existed in English. I don’t have a long version of the OED at hand, but I really believe it doesn’t.
Cuniculiculture.
Isn’t it wonderful? And Henry is actually engaged in it with Rebecca, if I remember right.
It is so Friday afternoon.
Oh, and celadon is a lovely tint of green in crackled pottery glaze.
@Brian: Celador. That thought has occurred to me, too. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there’s a connection.
@Richard: See? I told you that an opportunity to use ‘pulchritudinous’ would come along, didn’t I? O ye of little faith.
@Heather: Shhhh! Were it to get around that Rebecca and I were engaged in cuniculiculture, one of us might get arrested, and it wouldn’t be the rabbit.
Henry: Seriously mate, lay off the home brew for a while eh?
Richard: Mervyn Peake would be proud!
Something came into convo today at work that was appropriate at NN somewhere – thanks Susan.
The Hobbit Name Generator
MUCHOS FUN – PLEASE TRY IT OUT
So, will Marroc Bolger of Newbury dis swords with Marigold Bumbleroot of Haysend whilst talking about the latest snap of Minto Danderfluff of Willowbottom’s lion
Personally, I’m more interested in the word ‘frug’.
Yes, it’s a four-letter word beginning with ‘f’.
Manners, Henry. Manners.
I think ‘euphemism’ is one of my favourite words, and it’s actually a good word to use as well as to roll around on the tongue
Jenny – didn’t you once say that my favorite word was effluvia? Jolly good word that. It’s a kind of high-level onomatopoiea in that it sounds rather like the things it describes, if you see what I mean.
As opposed to an onomatopoeia that doesn’t? If the regular pedants are snoozing, I’m happy to step in.
Doh. I think I should probably go and flense the chickens, or something suitably horny-handed and rustic.
Flensing a chicken would make you a speksioneer, albeit one of whimsical habits, their more usual subjects being whales.
Mr Darwin – there might be more than one meaning of the word ‘flense’.