Word

“Be careful what you say—you may have to eat your words.”

I don’t think so much about eating my words as about wearing them. When someone sees me, the words come back to haunt like a miasma around me. No matter how colourful my dress, bad words turn everything grey and muddy brown.

»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«

We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«


 – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
 – Sand and Foam [1926]

»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«»«


 – Horace (65-8 B.C.)
 – Epistles, bk. I, epistle xviii, l. 71

We had words. Each and every evening.

Sometimes, when he stopped for beer after work, we had dishes and pots and food, too.

Which is more useful to you: a dictionary that tells you how to use a word or a dictionary that tells you how a word is used?

Think how much acceptance Mary showed when she said:

»Let it be done to me according to thy word.«

Words are like prodigies. They may want to stay inside where it is safe and warm but they'll never live if they never play outside...and find themselves lost in the cold.

Spaces define which letters to together to make up a word.

My favourite word in the English language is »language«. However, if you gave me a slightly larger set of words to choose from I might have more difficulty expressing a preference.

Spaces define which letters go together to make up a word.

LI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(trans. Edward Fitzgerald, 1st ed.)

What I feel for you,
I can't put in words,
language won't hold
my desire.

Without another word spoken on either side, the lodger took from his great trunk, a kind of temple, shining as of polished silver, and placed it carefully on the table.

I bought one of those Word-A-Day calendars to improve my vocabulary for college.

reify – to regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.