Books! Many people argue that they're the perfect medium, as evidenced by the fact that the way we make them hasn't really changed since the middle ages (though inventions such as the printing press and the computer have certainly made the process easier). The earliest ones are known as incunabula or incunables, grouped together because …
Sometimes it seems like the world can't stop talking. In English, we have so many words to describe the ways people speak that we're often taught in school to avoid the word "said" at all costs, in favor of the dozens of more colorful speech tags we have at our disposal. (We're usually later reprimanded …
No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, …
Compound words are fun. German is best known for doing this — stringing words and word parts, known as lexemes, together to create a single monstrosity of a word for something that usually doesn't need a dedicated word to begin with — but a handful of other languages do it too. As a result, those languages …
Clouds have many moods. The happy, fluffy clouds of a warm summer day are nothing like their dreary cousins of the overcast days of spring or autumn. Winter clouds are silent and bleak. Rainy days can be gloomy or peaceful, and there's something thrilling about the anger of a storm: dark clouds rolling in and …
When I came across this word I immediately thought of the White Queen's famous quote in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." I'm sure many of us aspire to that level of productivity. Getting anything meaningful done before breakfast can seem like a pretty …
Before I begin to write a post, I research the word to make sure that it's real and legitimate, and to make sure I have a thorough understanding of what it means before I begin to write about it. This one surprised me with a bit of a challenge, though, because information about it is …
"Where are you from?" doesn't seem like a complicated question, but I always struggle to answer it. I spent my childhood years in Wisconsin, where I grew used to moving apartments every couple of years; just as I became old enough to start forming a sense of identity, my family's circumstances brought us to New …
Confession time: I'm a bit of a sucker for 19th-century stuff. I'm especially fond of Victorian and Victorian Gothic things in particular. It was an interesting period of time, steeped in its own brand of melodrama characterized by elegant fashion, not-so-elegant living conditions, and downright horrifying medical practices. I think what intrigues us about it …
We have so many words for things we don't have words for. Thingamabob. Doodad. Whatsit. Doohickey. Thingy, if you're not one for bells and whistles. Or you could be on the opposite end of the spectrum like me, and invent your own chimerical abominations whenever a situation calls for a "whatchamawhozit". They're called "placeholder words", …
Verbomania 