The Style Files
My thoughts on design, writing and entrepreneurship.
Photo credit (background): www.pexels.com
Photo credit (background): www.pexels.com
Sprinkle your speech with enticing words. Photo credit: www.pexels.com As someone steeped in language, I continue to be fascinated by learning new words. It's part of the magic learning language or, in fact, speaking it even if you're monolingual. How can you not be taken by words or their sounds? I talked to a friend a few days ago and our conversations often land on words. They remind us of certain people or places the way songs might for other people. I wish everyone took the time to appreciate language and the gems that individual words represent. In that vein (and because it will serve as a mental holding space), I decided it's time for me to write an article wholly dedicated to words I've recently been reminded of, heard or covet. On to the list! Unless otherwise noted, the definitions are taken from www.merriam-webster.com. In some cases, I didn't include every definition for a single word. Words from foreign languages are italicized. abstemious: marked by restraint especially in the eating of food or drinking of alcohol. I heard this recently in an interview of Fran Lebowitz who will most likely be the subject of my next monthly inspiration in February. You can find the interview here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6AWAYg49K4. bombastic: marked by or given to speech or writing that is given exaggerated importance by artificial or empty means. egregious: conspicuous or conspicuously bad. Eiweiß: 'protein' or 'egg white(s)' according to www.dict.cc. German is hilariously literal in many instances like this. Note this is capitalized because nouns are always capitalized in German. impetuous: marked by impulsive vehemence or passion or marked by force and violence of movement or action. maelstrom: a powerful often violent whirlpool sucking in objects within a given radius or something resembling a maelstrom in turbulence. modicum: a small portion: a limited quantity. nadir: the lowest point. napiform: globular at the top and tapering off abruptly. ñoño: 'dull' according to www.spanishdict.com. noxious: physically harmful or destructive to living beings or disagreeable, obnoxious. ojalá: the Spanish word meaning 'hopefully,' 'if only' or 'I hope so' as defined by www.spanishdict.com/translate/ojala. The reason I LOVE this word is because Spanish is so strongly influenced by Arabic and in this case, it's thought to have come from Allah in Arabic. quixotic: foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals. Wortsalat: 'gibberish' according to www.dict.cc. In German, it's not uncommon to refer to many things as a salad like if dog leashes get wrapped around each other, etc. In fact, that's not unlike how garden is applied to other situations such as in the word Kindergarten. The words Kinder + Garten literally mean children + garden in German. Now you know where the English version comes from! zephyr: a breeze from the west or a gentle breeze. zu dritt: this German phrase means roughly 'in sets of three' according to www.dict.cc/. It's used commonly in German and means basically 'in pairs' if we had an equivalent phrase for groups of three. Got any words you'd like to add? Feel free to pass them along. I also plan to add to this as time goes on. In the meantime, thanks for your readership, I hope you enjoyed the marvels of new vocabulary and I'll catch you later! Do you recognize this quote? It's a good one!
Photo credit: www.pexels.com
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AuthorHi, my name is Martha Oschwald and I'm a content writer focused on design. This page is meant to give you a taste of my writing style and latest musings. Archives
April 2022
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