大象传媒

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. These words leave me languid and woebegone. To me the most beautiful words in the English language would be..."you have just won ten million dollars tax free." Now that's what I call beauty.

To me the most beautiful words in the English language would be..."you have just won ten million dollars tax free."

Well, good luck with your numbers, Marcus, but for me that would be a rather diaphanous, evanescent, ephemeral and fugacious beauty.

PM

If I hear them......I'll send you a postcard from Tahiti. Better yet, I'll send you a dictionary and you can cut out your preferences and paste them on a picture postcard of Tahiti as a reminder about the difference between your idea of beauty and mine.

because there God turned their language into "babble." GENESIS 11:9 (TM)

Here is my offering including all 100 words from the page you linked to (actually there were 103 words):

At my leisure, and shaking off my incipient lassitude and languor to express with ebullience, eloquence and evocative love my dalliance for dulcet and effervescent words, this erstwhile demure harbinger (though certainly no ingenue), imbued with the epiphany (an admittedly ephemeral, ethereal, evanescent and fugacious experience) of mellifluous and lilting tones, is attempting to conflate the plethora and panoply of labyrinthine expressions of our quintessentially opulent tongue, so comely with felicity and even glamour - an elixir of efflorescence without too much elision. Pleading the forbearance of the beleaguered assemblage of my readers, and not furtively dissembling by claiming my words are a panacea (I would not want them murmurous or woebegone, as if I am their nemesis, calling forth a ripple of susurrous onomatopeia and tintinnabulation) - and with no propinquity to ravel them in an imbroglio or wafture of diaphanous and rippling gossamer (despite its lithe and lissome imbrication) or even surreptitiously casting a penumbra over them - and without wishing to be untoward as a fetching cynosure in a linguistic demesne (bucolic like the summery Susquehanna that riparian land redolent with petrichor may be) - allow me, with a scintilla of insouciance, to proceed to the denouement of this verbal pastiche (which is no moiety of what has just been written).

In my inglenook - hardly a sumptuous seraglio by the lagoon with a view of the offing, more like a bungalow - I have the wherewithal to brood (applying a verbal embrocation or even emollient to the mind - albeit in a desultory way) over my literary palimpsest. I would not read it out, lest mondegreens should be heard, so I offer it as a written lagniappe - a ratatouille of words, not sempiternal or ineffable, but becoming and even chatoyant (so claims my ailurophile friend) like stars gambolling across the sky after a halcyon day of sweet serendipity. My composition is no talisman, no umbrella against a storm of illiteracy, and may only offer vestigial pleasure. If you become inured to my conceit, then I will still claim a pyrrhic victory, as I have prevented these words from falling into desuetude.

(PS - I thought "inure" meant to become hardened to something, not "to become jaded", as is the definition on the website. My dictionary also agrees with me!)

Here, Marcus, when you're buying the dictionary is there any chance you could pick up some glue too? Glue would be the perfect lagniappe.

I think bungalow is a ghastly word. It sounds as ugly as its common manifestation usually looks.

Juxtaposition is my favourite - but practically speaking *revalorisation* is far more important.

Here is a question that will create debate! - What do you think the most *important* word is?
I would imagine the following words would be popular - God, money, Atheism, employment, family, love.

Jas

Jason - in my book the most important words are deed or action.

Back to bungalows! I must rant. Surely it is the ugliest word in the English language: redolent of uPVC windows, laminate flooring, white marble chip pebble-dash, and asbestos pantile 'slates'; indicative of a complete lack of taste and discernment; suggestive of arid and hopeless aspiration.

Perhaps it is, however, an elliptical kenning from 'bung given to a planning service low-life to secure my construction', if so one might admire its refreshing honesty, its truth, but still not its beauty.

Now compare cottage - what a difference - there is a word full of possibilities...

Right now, I think my favorite word is "revolution". It's so easy to have one.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Here's the ugliest word in the English language:

"leverage" used as a verb:

As in: "to leverage a project". Ughh!!

Here are some usages I have seen in business meetings:

"to leverage operations"
"develop a strategy that leverages our unique position and strengths in the market"

What on earth does it mean?!?

An example of how language has as much capacity to obfuscate as to communicate.

Now I'm off to leverage a cup of coffee...

Private Eye's "Pseud's Corner" is always worth a read for 'leverage' LSV

Parrhasios - totally support your views on the word 'bungalow'.

Its an ugly, urban carbuncle of a word. Yep, Im seeing UPVC windows, pebbledash, faux fur cushions, eye level grills & 70s chic gone terribly wrong.
Abigails party is springing to mind, with cocktail sausages, pineapple/cheese on sticks and Demis Roussos.
My fave words are (in no particular order) Amethyst, Acolyte & Louche. Mmmmmmmmmm.
I try to fit then into a sentence whenever I can, its not easy tho :-)

#14 - Electra2009 -

"My fave words are (in no particular order) Amethyst, Acolyte & Louche."

Great words.

What about these:

acajou
ormolu
amaranth
obsidian
azure

These are surely better than "bungalow"!

However, my absolutely favourite word was in William's list: mellifluous (although I slightly prefer the variant: mellifluent).

PM;

"Here, Marcus, when you're buying the dictionary is there any chance you could pick up some glue too?"

Sure, if I win the 10 million, I'll send you a bucket of glue to paste your cutouts from the dictionary to the postcard with. When you're done with your hundred words, you can take the rest of the glue, stick it in your lagniappe and smoke it.

I find the word bungalow highly offensive.

A bucket, Marcus? How generous.

What about bun-a-glow?

I happen to like etymology (the origins of words). One thing the English language has always been good at is absorbing words from other cultures.
Below I've listed those from the 'Money Quote' [above[, in the order they appear.
We owe much to the Norman invaders and the Romans and Greeks. Very few of those words (Woebegone, Glamour) can be clamed as being of uniquely British or English origin.

Demurely - Middle English 'demuren' = to delay; from Old French 'demorer' = delay. (From Latin 'demorari'.)
Gambolled - Alteration of French 'gambade' = horse's jump, from Old French.
Bucolic - Latin 'bucolicus', pastoral, from Greek 'boukolikos'.
Bungalow - Hindi 'bangla' = a Bengali bungalow.
Broody - Middle English, from Old English 'brod'.
Dalliance - Middle English 'daliaunce' from Norman French.
Eloquent - Middle English, from Old French, from Latin 'eloquens'.
Evanescent - From Latin 'evanescere' = to vanish.
Palimpsest - Latin 'palimpsestum', from Greek 'palimpseston' = scraped again.
Cynosure - From Latin 'cynosura', from Greek 'kunosoura' = dog's tail.
Evocative - From Latin 'evocare'.
Halcyon - Middle English 'alcioun', from Latin 'alcyon', from Greek 'halkuon'.
Glamour - a variant of Scotish 'gramarye' = magic, enchantment or spell.
Redolent - Middle English (Norman), from Old French, from Latin 'redolens'.
Riparian - From Latin 'riparius', from 'ripa' = river bank.
Petrichor - From Greek words 'petros' = a stone, and 'ichor' = blood of the gods.
Susquehanna - A Native American people, also gave their name to the Susquehanna River in New York.
Incipient - From Latin 'incipiens'.
Insouciant - From Old French, both 'in' + 'souciant'.
Harbinger - from Old French 'herbergeor'.
Ebullient - From Latin 'ebulliens'.
Epiphany - Middle English (Norman) 'epiphanie', from Old French, from Latin 'epiphania' = manifestation.
Inglenook - From Scottish, 'ingle' = a fire burning on a hearth, + Nook, from Middle English (Norman) 'nok', probably of Norwegian (Viking) origin.
Ere - From Old English 'Aer', Indo-European root, ayer = day, morning.
Ratatouille - From French, toillier = to stir.
Conflating - From Latin 'conflare'.
Effervescent - From Latin 'effervescere'.
Wafted - From alteration of Middle English (Norman) 'waughter', in turn from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German 'wachter'.
Languid - From French 'languide', from Latin 'languidus'.
Woebegone - from Old English 'begen' : be + 'g膩n' = go.
Ephemeral - From Greek 'ephemeros'.
Leisure - Middle English (Norman), from French 'leisour'.

Even 'Old English' comes from the Anglo-Saxons and of Germanic origins, later to be mixed with Scandinavian as the Danes and Vikings colonised. Middle English was heavily influenced by Norman French.
If interested in how the English language has developed into what it is today, Melvyn Bragg's 'The Adventure of English' is worth reading.

Watching the performance of To Be Straight With You last evening the lovely word corybantic sprang to mind. Association led to three of my own favourite words: bacchanalian, voluptuary, and priapic.

None of these words feature on Dr Goodword's list - does he need to get out more?

Parrhasios

Where you smoking something in the 1960's? Is it still on the market?
The people have a right to know? (-;

Graham

You ask, "Parrhasios. Where you smoking something in the 1960's?"

But that, Graham, is the wrong question.

The correct question is, 'What where you smoking in the 60's?'

And of course, according to Marcus, we'd need a lagniappe to put it in. #16

Guys - I plead the fifth!

However, a quick scan of the list reveals the absence of another three wonderful words powerfully evocative of those heady student days: groovy, psychedelia, and Marxist-Leninist. (I was more of a Trot myself but that lacks verbal punch today).

I have then to ask: did Dr Goodword not get out enough even when he was at university?