Published on 12, July, 2020
Words fascinate me, I love them and I know so many and can even spell a few of them! I find different words give so much more texture and depth to what we say. I find the origins of words as interesting as the words themselves and the different uses for the same word although it can all get confusing when you have to work out which witch to use and weather/whether it will make a difference to waht you're saying.
Is English the only language to have so many similar words or words that change with context?
I also have a theory that that dialect words and accents follow the boundaries of the old Anglo-Saxon countries, if you look at a map of the original kingdoms pre Alfred the Great, then the variety of accents beccome more apparent. Of course i some areas such as the North East you have to factor in a large amount of Scandinavian words and accents too and along the borders of Wales.
Do you have favourite words and least favourite? I do't like the word "genre" mostly because it's hard to stop saying it and it ends up with a few extra "re-s" takcked on the end as you run out of breath whilst saying it.
I also gecome faascinated with "F" and "Ph", such as fantastic and phantasmagorical
Words/sentences are one of my favourite types of pattern- I find it hard to write sometimes as the order and meaning has to be perfect, but it is fun to manipulate them to make different meanings. English is definitely an unusual language, particularly as it becomes more 'global', I am not too familiar with other languages yet but French has quite a few similar words (both within the language itself and with other languages like English), and lots of written Arabic (which I am still very new to!) does not include the vowels so you have to work out what the word is from the context!
I like words like ankylosaurus and haematopoietic, I'm not so keen on expect or definitely although I use them a lot (the dislike is more from the spelling), and I'm quite averse to words ending in -que. Do you find your experience of the written word similar to the spoken word? For me they are like two totally different languages.