Do you like words? Me too! And not only the ones I make up myself. Want to hear a few actual ones that give me the straight up lock-down willies? Some make the list based on how they sound or how they look, or on their meanings, and others still on their relative level of obscurity or untranslatability. You decide which is which, and then tell me the ones you’re going to use in your next dance song, if it turns out you still make those.

  • usher – Just kidding! As a verb or a noun, it’s just too blasé. Now I bet you think my next word is going to be ‘blasé’, since it’s rare enough and I used it here, so maybe I’ll be connecting each word with the next in some way, but this it not the case. To be honest, I’m pretty indifferent to blasé. The rest of them are all sweet though.
  • litost – I laugh and forget where I first saw this, but it’s Czech and possibly Milanese. It reminds me of saudade, which is also a good one, but maybe it shouldn’t.
  • apocope – And not just hypocorisms, chile!
  • bed – You can snuggle up above the ‘e’ between the ascender posts and have a nap inside the word itself.
  • bungalow – Best while on beaches, but even those in your dreams are okay.
  • floccinaucinihilipilification – My lucky number is 9 and my name starts with an ‘i’, so any omission of this one, intentional or not, would be unforgivable.
  • umchina – It’s, um, actually Korean.
  • nugatory – Its inclusion in this list is of no consequence to anyone except me.
  • cryptomnesia – This one’s alright even without the secondary definition relating to me forgetting where I put the hard drive with all my ฿itcoin on it.
  • petrichor – Some nice stink!
  • globophobia – I even named one of my fake bands after this one.
  • tony – This one’s only good when it’s about rich people being fashionable.

Yep, language bits certainly are great, after all. The following will not be qualified in any way, to see if you can accept them for what each is – a single word, full of meaning and beauty and on equal footing with its companions. Except sonder. That one packs a real punch. Oomph.

  • verschlimmbesserung
  • tmesis
  • phantasmagoria
  • sonder
  • ikigai
  • ninjaic
  • araprosdokian
  • risible
  • inimical
  • vestige
  • cataplexy

[Editor’s note: One of these words isn’t real, and while the author successfully got it past Standards and Practices, I am journalistically implored to to warn you not to believe everything you read.]

October 14 – Usher Raymond gets words to live by
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