22 September 2006

Words that feel good in the mouth II

Occipital. Bonnie Hunt used it on her cancelled show last year when she referred to her "occipital Rolodex."

Supple
. This one struck me while listening to Neil Finn's "The Truth" ... "Remember what we are/ Supple and new."

Bump
. It's been around for awhile, but I really like it in connection with the pitcher's mound in baseball. "The Cubs play the Diamondbacks tonight with Les Walrond on the bump." Believe me, it's a lot more effective if you've ever heard of the pitcher. But the Cubs don't have any of those anymore.

Alacrity. Sen. Charles Schumer: "Why aren't we moving with alacrity" when installing the new security system that will scan cargo bins for nuclear content?

Grok. This word is ... what, 30 years old now? A gift from Robert Heinlein, and still more useful to me than other words that seem trendy. This one stuck for me, and I'm surprised it hasn't been more universally accepted. Perhaps the universe hasn't grokked it yet.

Fracture. It almost hurts to even hear the word, doesn't it? That's because it contains the sound of cracking bone.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

[Comment transferred from old blog]

Fracture grosses me out as well. Ever since I had that broken leg when I was a kid and the doctor talked about the fracture the whole time there is this awful memory of it.

Anonymous said...

[Comment transferred from old blog]

Weltschmerz. My weltschmerz is ending now that the Lost season premiere is just over 24 hours away!

Thank you for your kind words on my blog, by the way.