Jan
2
Cloissone
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It sounds like metal-lined flowers blooming in pools of enamel. It sounds like it looks.
I’d heard the word in passing but never knew how it looked. It would roll around my head for days. And then, one afternoon while walking in Geneva, I found a jewelry store by the same name.
In Geneva you can stand quiet in a square and hear a dozen languages spoken. The word itself seems like it could be made up of as many languages, but means the same thing in almost every one.
Kara Larson
Seattle, WA
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Jan
2
Plethora
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I fell in love with plethora during my first year working at the student newspaper in college. Plethora seemed to be such an elegant, intellectual word. Instead of saying many, a lot, or several, there is the beautiful plethora. How could you not love it?
Melanie
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Jan
2
Eschew obfuscation
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Let me add my vote in favor of this potent little phrase. In a car, in a conversation with a friend where this came up as a perfect explanation of what lawyers should TRY to do, another occupant of the car asked: “What language is that?”
Jay Fogel
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Jan
2
Ominous
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My pop taught me this word in the 6th grade. We used to drive 45 minutes every morning to my school (we lived way out in the woods and it’s a long story why I didn’t go to the local school). This was pretty much the only time I had my pop to me and we used to have long and very deep (as deep as a 12 year-old could get, anyway) conversations.
One day we crossed a bridge and noticed there was a very strange natural phenomenon happening on the lake. The lake we were crossing had wisps of fog that looked like thousands and thousands of little ghostly branches. Pop and I stopped the car to look at the phenomenon and he turned to me and said, “That’s ominous!” Being the wordy nerdy I was (and still am), I just absolutely loved the way ominous rolled off my tongue as I tried it out for the first time like a luscious strawberry. Even now, 20 years later, every time I’ve used the word ominous in his presence, I still get a belly laugh out of him.
Ominous. Doesn’t that just send chills up your spine?!
Carrie
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Jan
2
Plangent
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Once upon a time, Elvis Costello’s music publishing company was named “Plangent Visions Music.” I saw this on a record once, and had to look up plangent – “Having an expressive or plaintive quality.” A gorgeous word.
Paul D.
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Jan
2
Ocelot
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It simply rolls off the tongue wonderfully. It also looks cool — especially when it’s all in lower case–with a bunch of low round letters and two tall ones.
Daniel Sack
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Jan
2
The silver heights and secret valleys of a body bathed by the moon.
The long shadow of a dark knight cast full across a chess board by way of sunset through venetian blinds.
The sharp crags and steep reliefs of lovers prone to quarrel.
Chiaroscuro describes the topography of ancient archetypes and the interplay of changing meanings: it is where brilliance collides with murkiness and bright lines shade into comfortable ambiguity.
Joseph Lavin
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Jan
2
Radicchio
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Radicchio [rah-DEE-kee-oh]
This red-leafed Italian chicory is most often used as a salad green.
Why do I love it? Try this: Pretend you are Italian and roll the “R” at the beginning as you say it. So much verbal fun I can’t stand it.
Shannon Gifford
Lancaster, PA. USA
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Jan
2
Ululation
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just the sound of it, the way it feels in your mouth when saying it, and that it describes a sound, though not an onomatopoeia (another good word) exactly, but in that vein.
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Jan
2
Come on now!
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This phrase says it all and really works in any situation. It is the most efficient, expressive catch all phrase I have ever come across.
“Did you get your work done today?” “Oh, come on now!”
“Will you buy me those shoes?” “Oh, come on now?”
Try it out — it’s perfect — really.
Roger
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