BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Wow, ejwme!! Totally neat. I used to think I had a pretty good vocabulary until I read through the comments. I've never learned of so many new words in one day as I did looking through them. Now if I could only figure out a way to work them into ordinary conversation....

I liked "petrichor" -- I didn't know there was a word of description for that.

I also liked the snippet of the Robert Herrick peom fairly near the beginning of the comments, "Upon Julia's Clothes." Everytime I see something of his it reminds he had one of the most prodigious techniques of any poet in the English language -- on a par with W.H. Auden at the height of his powers.

THanks for sharing. Now we return you to our regular bicycle programming...

+1 on petrichor. In my mind I just had it tagged "worms", now I have a word.

I think I've gambolled once or twice... I'd add 'hummocky' to the list. I love that word, and I get to use it alot!

One problem with the list is that I'll still mispronounce the words.

yeah, I have mispronounciation issues as well. I was a book worm as a kid and knew more words than most - on paper. Couldn't pronounce diddly, so even now I tend not to use words, but instead "collect" them writen down by others. I'm irked that my husband uses me as a dictionary sometimes, but I can't complain much - he doesn't bat an eye when I throw an electrical device down in frustration and ask him to "make it go".

Personally, I've always thought the word "love" was phonologically too mundane for the idea it portrays, though I suppose it's appropriately accessible and simple.

My top two are ricochet and ululation. Both are onomatopaeic and mean things that I find exciting.

I do like derailleur and pannier in cycling, they're two lovely words even if I've never heard anybody pronounce them them same (and sheldon doesn't like the former: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/derailer.html )

Cassette is also a lovely word, but all of its meanings i've bumped into have all been far too ... mundane and mechanical. It should be some kind of delicate pastry that pairs well with fruit. Cassette d'cassis, or cassette a la mode.

the problem with using words that nobody knows is that nobody knows them. i occasionally find myself talking over the heads of folks with words i just assumed everyone knew.

@HV: Yeah, being overly sesquipedalian in discourse can be a real bee-yotch on occasion.

I love when people use words I dont know - I look them up and spend hours leafing through the dictionary (well, now clicking through wikipedia).

Eschew obfuscation.

I have trouble reading paper books now because I can't just click on the word to get the definition. Damn Kindle.

"Back when I was a kid, Kindle was called Books, and they were heavy! Each one, HUNDREDS of pieces of paper, and we had to flip the pages by hand, BOTH WAYS...."

ejwme -- I bet you were walking ten miles through snow drifts in the dead of winter to return those heavy books to the library, weren't you?

uphill both ways

Someday I may break down and get a kindle, they're getting so cheap, but libraries are free and don't require charging...

I'm too young to be this old

ejwme -- I prefer to think of it as old-fashioned, or better yet, "traditional".

If I think the book is worth owning, I just prefer the feel and heft of a real tangible book that you can turn pages.

Then there are some books that because of their subject matter or the way they are organized, you almost must have a hard copy to leaf back and forth through. The Official Records of the American civil war are a great example of this.

As to being too young to be this old, I'll tell you what I did. I just decided a while back that the numbers had gotten too big for me to work with, so I quit trying. Now I don't have to think about it anymore. It really is true that ignorance is bliss, as they say.