Feel the Ebullience!

Ebullient is totally one of my words. I know it without looking because I put in on my list of good words when I first made one, at around 12.

It means all sorts of lovely things: bubbling, effervescent (which is next week's word - also mine, also went on that adolescent list. detect a pattern here?), boiling over, overflowing with enthusiasm, high spirits, showing much exuberance or exhilaration.

I don't think I need to explain why I like it.

It's also apropos of this mid-April Sunday morning here in Santa Fe. The weather is warming and the desert is springing into green life. A wren has a nest outside my office window and she sings the loveliest trilling song. Yesterday I bought hanging baskets of flowers and their bright colors bring out the blue in the sky.

I associate "ebullient" with that adolescent time of life, too, when I felt full of high spirits and the world held infinite possibilities. On my best days, I reconnect with that, with that sensation of burgeoning sexuality and creativity. Like the flowers, I blossom in the sunshine, showing off my best and brightest colors.

Happy Spring!

Why You Should Be Glad that Being Apoplectic Isn't as Bad as It Used to Be

I laughed this morning to see the results of my late-night phone call with the brilliant and insightful Carolyn Crane. She's been swamped with work lately, so when she pinged me, said she'd finished my new erotic romance novel and had crit for me, I paused the movie we'd been watching and hopped on the phone. Amusingly enough, we were both walking on our treadmill desks as we talked and I wrote comments on both on my laptop and on these sticky notes.

The laugh was an especially happy one, because I can incorporate her comments today and send this off to my editor! Best feeling ever.

The opposite of apoplectic, regardless of which definition you use.

Yes, Bordello-followers - the word of the week is "apoplectic," which is one of those words that has migrated so far in common usage from its original meaning, that it's fair to say that it doesn't mean what we think it means.

I suspect I encountered the word first in historical romances, usually when some grand dame went into a rage. In fact, if you plug "apoplectic" into Ye Olde Google, you might get something like what I got:

Notice that "apoplectic fit" is the second suggestion, which is how it always appeared in the romance novels. Unless the person in question had a "fit of apoplexy." Interestingly, it's come to pretty be synonymous with anger.

But this isn't what it originally meant at all.

My Webster's Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary (2,347 pages, thumb indexed, 320,000 definitions, 19 encyclopedic supplements, 3,000 illustrations, Full color maps of the world) defines apoplexy as from the Greek word apoplessein, "to strike down."

"sudden  paralysis with total or partial loss of consciousness and sensation, usually as a result of hemorrhage causing pressure on the brain tissue; sometimes used of a hemorrhage in some other organ; as apoplexy of the liver."

And "apoplectic" is:

"disabled by a stroke, stricken. 1. Pertaining to, having or symptomatic of apoplexy; as, an apoplectic fit. 2. predisposed to apoplexy; as, apoplectic with rage."

I suppose this secondary definition - which notably appears only in the definition of the adjective, not the noun - has ascended as medical terminology has overtaken the language that describes a stroke. (Note, however, that our word "stroke" still conveys that original sense of being struck down, that the ancient Greeks observed.) More, our increasingly detailed understanding of the syndrome, which The Merck Manual calls "a heterogeneous group of disorders involving sudden, focal interruption of cerebral blood flow," has produced an array of more precise words: ischemic, thrombosis, embolism, aneurism, etc.

So, really, "apoplexy" isn't accurate as a medical term at all, anymore. Fascinating to me that we've retained the sense of the physical symptoms of being apoplectic, but now assign it to an emotional state.

Warm Fuzzy Words

There's a quote that makes me giggle.

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
—James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Thus it is that there's little point in wasting energy on loving or hating anything about words. The language is alive and changing on a daily basis. However, under duress (and with a deadline looming) I'll confess to a few mild preferences.

Words that give me warm fuzzies:
Words that aren't words.
Ain't - Not a true word, but it's so expressive and regional, it's a fine tool when applied judiciously.

Words that annoy others.
Whom - I not only like 'whom', I know when and how it ought to be used. It may be archaic, but damn it, I learned it. You can pry my 'with whom?' out of my cold dead hands. Along with my ale flagon. Related? Farther. It is still a word and it doesn't mean the same thing as further. People saying further when farther is what's meant - well, that belongs down in my 'nails on a chalkboard' list.

I'm currently enamored of a group of words from a class I'm taking:
Systems - you build these
Experiment - then you test your systems
Action - what your systems drive you to
Bonus word - Contingency - that which you have in plan in case your experiments prove your system doesn't work
(I like these words, because at the moment, these words and this class seem to be doing the job I hoped they would...)

Words that are nails on my personal chalkboard:
Words that aren't words. Never mind what I said above. There are few words that aren't words that WORK. Most don't. One of the words that drives me to the brink of murderous rage: Irregardless - doesn't exist. You mean regardless. Don't make me break out the pitchfork and torch.

Words that aren't used correctly - Inflammable. This word doesn't mean what lots of people think it means. It means easily burned - easy to light afire. My gnomish fire mage would be happy to prove your socks are inflammable.

My least favorite words ever? Words that take away.
Cancer
Bury
Goodbye

Word Play

by Allison Pang

Many moons ago when I was in high school, one of my favorite English teachers mentioned a study that indicated that the easiest word to pronounce in the English language was "syphilis."

It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Unfortunately it sucks to try to spell, but that's another topic all together. (And yeah, okay, STD and all, but as a word, I guess it's still rather interesting.)

High school was one of those time when the SATs were big, so of course everyone I knew was busy studying the vocab - which meant an awful lot of stuff like "My, but you're looking lugubrious today!" or "Let's make sure to promulgate this information!" being thrown out in random conversation.

I'll be honest, though - for the most part, I don't really love OR hate too many words - for me, it's whatever gets the job done. In a lot of ways I feel like writing words is sort of like drinking wine. And no, I don't really drink...but I have been to tastings and I always find it fascinating how one wine can taste fabulous with one sort of food - and like total shit with another.

It's a lot like that for me with words and phrases. Sometimes it's not even a specific word by itself that is good or bad, but the other words around it that can make or break it for me.

I mean, one of my most favorite phrases is Shakespeare's "Now is the winter of our discontent" - by themselves, I certainly wouldn't say winter or discontent was my favorite or most hated, but together? I find it completely fascinating.

That being said, I always run a word mosaic on a finished draft/manuscript to see which words I'm using the most. If I went by that, I'd have to say that apparently my favorite words are JUST, BACK, KNOW, GAZE and EYES.

Which is crap, because I really like words like UNGULATE, MALODOROUS, SYMPHONIC, VIOLA and PRESTIDIGITATION. Also LAGOMORPH. And LEPIDOPTERA.

I don't really use most of those in my writing, but I like the way they feel when I say them.  Except for malodorous  - yes, it's a Monty Python reference - bonus points to anyone who knows the line/skit that it's from.)

I will say that sometimes it's not even about the words so much as how they're spelled. grey vs gray, for example. I like gray better than grey. Or the UK way of spelling traveller is so much nicer to me than the American traveler.

Hated words? Eh. The only one I really dislike is pussy. I can happily juggle cunts all day in prose (in a literary sense...not literally), but I won't use pussy if I can help it. Just doesn't float my boat, so to speak.

A Halestorm of Words

I saw HALESTORM at the HOUSE OF BLUES in Cleveland last night! (**which is why my post is late...good reason, huh?)













KICK ASS SHOW!









The opening band reminded me of Paramore. The middle act was a solid and tight blue collar rock band with bite. Here's a video for their song BULLET IN MY HAND which rocked. They sound better live than the studio version--that's saying something. Check 'em out.

Alas...I gotta put the rockin aside for a moment and get to the topic.

Five Words I LOVE:

1.) FUCK. * It's a noun. It's a verb. It's an adjective. Fuck wins the multi-tasking trifecta. You can make an entire sentence with this word and it's derivatives. The word 'shit' comes close to having the same power, as does the word 'smurf' but both lack the broad scope of 'fuck.' *Definition is not possible, but inherent understanding is expected.

2.) MAGNILOQUENCE. "Speaking in lofty or grandiose style." (VICIOUS CIRCLE p 129)

3.) MALEFICENT. "Doing evil or harm." Not only the name for Disney's best villianess, IMO, it's just cool to say. (muh-leff-uh-sent) It rolls off the tongue like sweet candy...with a poison center.

4.) LEXICON. Nope. It's not a fancy convention for high-end car lovers. "Inventory. The vocabulary of a particular language, field, class, person,etc. A wordbook." It's the inventory of your language. Your personal lexicon includes the words you use to communicate every day, the dialect of your area or family or religion, as well as the jargon unique to your profession. It is you.

5.) ILLUMINATI. "Persons possessing or claiming to possess superior enlightenment." It's just a cool word. Sounds mystical and menacing at once.

Five Words I HATE:

1.) NO. Don't tell me no. Just don't. If I've not gotten it myself and I bothered to ask you, it's important.

2.) DISEASE. (Including DIALYSIS. CANCER. etc.) Too many good people taken by it.


3.) WHITE CHOCOLATE. Just put the damn cocoa in mine or keep it to yourself.

4.) {insert fashionable non-word of the week here}. You know which ones I'm talking about. Yeah. :-/

5.) PUSILLANIMOUS. "Lacking courage or resolution; timid; faint-hearted." (pyoo-suh-lan-i-mus) First, it looks like it's going to mean one thing and then it doesn't. Second, it sounds off-putting to me. Just saying. And I had to fill the list with something.

CHAPTER 6 of Persephone Alcmedi Book 7 is up and ready at:
www.wolfsbaneandabsinthe.blogspot.com

Loves & Loathes: Words

Three cheers for List Season! Bullet points! Skimming! Mind candy! Without much ado, here are my Words to Love and Loathe:

Words I Love:

1. Apoplectic -- While apoplexy isn't something I'd wish upon a friend, it is a mighty fine word to say and with which to play.
2. Decrepit --  When I was young and learning the concept of "root words," I was convinced "crepit" was an actual word. I became obsessed with "crepit" and tried to force it into our lexicon. Alas, I failed. "Decrepit" is as close as I can get. 
3. Irascible -- I always picture a cross between a pirate and a bulldog growling this word. It amuses me greatly.
4. Quixotic -- Part Don Quixote, part Exotic. Yes, yes, that is how my mind smashes concepts together to recall meanings.
5. Adz -- It's a logging tool. It's also a three-letter word using the letter Z, which is useful in a myriad of spelling games. 

Words/Phrases I Loathe:
Truly, there is only one word I loathe, but lest you, dear readers, feel deprived, I'll toss in a phrase that ought to be put on a shelf for twenty-five years.

1. Vagina -- Nope, I'm not ashamed of my girly bits. Any other term for that particular part of anatomy is fine by me. Cunt, cooch, hooha, twat, hairy taco... any of them. Just. Not. The proper term.  Yes, I realize it's irrational. No, it doesn't change my reaction to it.
2. "You'll Appreciate This" -- No. No I will not. Stop overusing the phrase. It's become a trigger to tromp a throat. 

There are so many delightful words in the English language and I'm constantly learning more. There are words I've forgotten, and when I encounter them again it's a wonderful reunion. 

Dear reader, is there a word you've forgotten yet with which you've become reacquainted? Do share!

Why I Love Color Words and Why Whom Should Die

The view out our driveway the other day. This seems to be shaping up to be a snowy winter!

This week's topic is a good one for the annual Word Whores' Holiday Party. We're breaking out the brandied eggnog, mead and cookies this week and throwing out the cocktail conversation challenge:

What are your five most loved and hated words?

So, I have a confession to make.

As usual, huh?

Must be the brandied eggnog.

I started a list of "Good Words" when I was twelve. I know, I know - my best friend made the 7th grade cheerleading squad and had a boyfriend. I was making lists of good words. This might seem like a stretch, but those words and my feelings about them were absolutely tied in with my burgeoning sexuality. Unlike my friend, I wasn't ready to make out with boys at parties, but I thought about, and read about, sex a lot.

This, no doubt, explains a great deal about how I've ended up where I am today.

I've lost that list - I bet there were 30-50 words on it, that I added to over time - but I know that many of my favorite words today were on it. All of them tie into sensual, exuberant feelings. Here are five of them:

Exquisite

Ebullient

Effervescent

Egregious

Voluptuous

Why do so many begin with the letter "e"? I have no idea. Probably some Facebook app personality analysis would return a verdict. My original list also contained a lot of color/jewel-related words. It's no coincidence that my Facets of Passion series has color titles - or that my original title for Rogue's Pawn was "Obsidian." Yes, I have a list of color words I like, as potential future titles for the Facets of Passion. As a hint, the next three I have contracted are Emerald, Adamantine and Amber.

 As for my most hated words?

You know, this isn't a thing for me. Probably this says something about me, too, but I don't really have words I despise in the same way I have words that make me tingle all over. I know a lot of people hate "moist" or "suckle." They don't bother me. In fact, I can think of only one word that I'll never willingly use:

Whom

Right? I mean, enough already. It's archaic. Most of my editors consider it optional and restricted to formal English. Nobody uses it in conversation. (Okay, yes, some of you do. Have some more mead and stop that.)

I am, however, willing to entertain votes for hated words. Anyone got one that makes their skin crawl?