A note before I go into my main blog…I will get to your sites. It’s been an insane week with school and I’m barely getting by. I’ve been copy and pasting journal entries here that I’ve been writing for a class…two birds with one stone, I guess. They are written half with my class in mind and half with y’all in mind. I’m just sorry I haven’t been giving as much as you all have been giving me lately.

–

Logophile or Philologist?

“Quoting: the act of repeating erroneously the words of another.”
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce (1842-1914), American writer

I love words. I can’t imagine a language that wasn’t living, that didn’t allow new words to be introduced to it every single day. I think that English is an amazing language because it is forever growing despite some very good efforts by “purists.”

“Zeno used to say that he had two kinds of disciples: one that he called philologos, curious to learn things, who were his favorites; and the other logophilos, who were concerned only with the words.”
Montaigne

A philologist is defined as someone who studies literature and like disciplines. However, if the Greek is broken down, it means the love of learning and literature, words and speech. (http://webster.com)

Logophilia. Now, that’s a word for you. It sounds like a powerful word. George Thompson (http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu:8080/hyper-lists/classics-l/98-08-01/0379.html) says that logophilia is not meant to replace philologia but, instead, to name a person who goes overboard in his/her love of words. He says, “Post-modernists use the term ‘logophilia’ to refer to an almost pathological “love” of words, that is an urge to see secret meanings, messages, encodings, in texts.

A pathological love of words. That sounds ominous, doesn’t it? I use words for evil. Mwah-hah-hah. I love words. Simple as that.

I subscribe to Webster’s Word of the Day. Sometimes they are words I know. Other times, though, they are words that I’ve never heard, have forgotten, or am hearing in a new way. I like the way some of them roll off of my tongue: kibitzer (one who looks on and often offers unwanted advice or comment especially at a card game; broadly : one who offers opinions), mordacious (1 : biting or given to biting *2 : biting or sharp in manner or style : caustic), longanimity (a disposition to bear injuries patiently : forbearance), abecedarian (*1 a : of or relating to the alphabet b : alphabetically arranged 2 : rudimentary), tatterdemalion (1 *a : ragged or disreputable in appearance b : being in a decayed state or condition : dilapidated 2 : beggarly, disreputable), chary (discreetly cautious: as a : hesitant and vigilant about dangers and risks *b : slow to grant, accept, or expend), pogonip (a dense winter fog containing frozen particles that is formed in deep mountain valleys of the western U.S.), revenant (one that returns after death or a long absence), thimblerig (*1 : to cheat by trickery 2 : to swindle by thimblerig), and epigone (follower, disciple; also : an inferior imitator). Aren’t they beautiful? Don’t they entice you to say them, to savor them, to allow them to roll off of your tongue in some poetic way?

Ok, ok…I may have gone a bit too far putting all of those here. They were sitting in my e-mail begging to be used and this was the best place to use them. Afterall, when am I, really, going to be able to say that I was thimblerigged? And how perverse does that sound when you say it like that???

The point of this is that language is powerful. It’s real. It’s growing, it’s changing, it’s moving, it’s surrounding us with all of its beauty.

I belong to a group of women in an online chat. We call ourselves wordsluts. I think that explains it better than anything else ever could.

“The next best thing to being witty one’s self, is to be able to quote another’s wit.”
Christian Nestell Bovee