OK, so I am fond of the images it conjures… Philology wise, I would like to think the origins came from “strum” and “crumpet,” though I suspect otherwise. To Strum – to play or lightly touch. A crumpet – a nice soft muffin. Obviously then, a strumpet must be someone encompassing both these attributes [...]

I was in a spelling bee in the South in grade school — a 3rd grader going up against high school students. I was runner-up in the contest. The winner was a 12th grader. The word I tripped on was “lagniappe.” I had never heard of it, did not know what it meant, and [...]

“Meh” is my favorite word because it describes how you are feeling when you don’t fell like anything, or what you want to do when you don’t really know what it is that you want to do.

Amanda

Not because I’m a serial procrastinator, but because it’s such a warm-sounding, optimistic word: as in, “tomorrow is another day” and “the sun will come out….” The word is so full of the future, of the possibilities life can present you with if you give it another day’s chance to pleasantly surprise you. It [...]

Many years ago, when I was looking for a “big word” one day, my dad taught me to say that something is “etiolated.” Although it generally refers to plants which have been made pale due to lack of light (e.g. “white asparagus”), it can refer to paleness or loss of energy in a person. [...]

Simple yet elegant, easy to say, and even has a pleasant aesthetic quality when written. It can be used in so many wonderful situations and describes something wondrous, altogether pleasing to the mind, in my opinion.

Shaun