A Cornucopia of Words: My Top Five Favorite
Today is the second to last day of National Words Matter Week. And they do so matter. Sometimes we take that for granted and start making up a lot of acronyms so we don’t have to use actual words to communicate. Sometimes we revert to just grunts and charades. I for one value my words. To the death! Who’s with Me!
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Sorry. Got a little revolutionary there. Anyway, here are my personal five favorite words and why I love them (or something along those lines).
1. Cornucopia – This has been somewhere in my top five favorite words for many years. I used to say things like “a cornucopia of things” and “a veritable cornucopia” quite a bit. It was my “smart keyword.” (For more about “smart keywords” check this out.) However, I got to the point where I figured I had used it up like an overused semi-colon.
2. Ellipsis – The dot, dot, dot is just fine, but although it has its practical uses, I’m not infatuated with it or anything. What I love here is the word that describes it, Ellipsis. So elegant. It has a classic Greek name ring to it. I have decided that if I were ever to own a horse, I would name it Ellipsis. The Great Ellipsis. (Side note: In that imaginary scenario, I’m thinking about purchasing three more horses and naming them Interrogatory, Exclamation, and Declarative.)
3. Vengeance – There are some words that are just super fun to use in a sentence. They kind of flow off the tongue. This is one of those. And how! Like when we’re playing a game of Risk and you’re talking smack: “I shall plow through your pathetic Mongol hordes with a mighty VENGEANCE!” But that is just one example. I love it equally as well in other non-Risk related situations. Sometimes I just like to randomly point at people and yell, “Vengeance!”
4. Bulbous – This is so nostalgic a word for me. When I was young my brother Daniel and I latched on to the word “bulbous” with all our might. We loved it because it made everything funnier. Everything was “bulbous.” A bulbous head, a bulbous rock, a bulbous tree, etc. Sometimes we even said someone was The Bulb. Although I have matured in my usage of bulbous, it remains one of the funniest adjectives in the English language. Bulbous. Hilarious.
5. Moist – My relationship to this word is a little different than the rest of the words on this list. In fact, it is a word I most recently put on it because it is a word I truly love to hate it. Pretty sure a lot of people either love to hate it or just flat out hate it with every fiber of their being. And that also makes it a funny word to me. You know that slimy bespectacled Nazi dude in “Raiders of the Lost Ark?” So you’re eating dinner, say something using “Moist” like he might: “This cornbread is very….moist.” Do this and watch them squirm.
So there are my top words. tell us some of your favorite words and why they have this exalted position.
Ben was a founding member of Rambling Ever On and a regular contributor and editor until his untimely death in April 2020.
We wrote a tribute to him, but the best tribute you can give him would be to read all the wonderful poems, short stories, book reviews, theological essays, and ridiculous satire pieces he wrote for us. Pass them on to others and maybe allow Ben to inspire you to write something yourself.
- The Chorus (Considering Ecclesiastes) - November 20, 2024
- The Aftermath (Considering Ecclesiastes) - September 24, 2024
- A Lesson (Considering Ecclesiastes) - August 20, 2024
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Excellent choices bro! You’ve got some good thoughts in that bulbous head of yours.
The Bulb
Yes, good selections. I’m going to think about what mine,would be.
Some of mine might make for mediocre Scrabble words, but they are still tops to me.
I like the words “statistics” and “frustrated” simply because I can pronounce them correctly, while other people have such difficulty saying them.
Also, the word “superfluous” has always been a favorite of mine.
There were no superfluous words on you list. They were all grand choices, and I wasn’t frustrated by them in any way.
I’m still trying to pronounce “abyss.” How I long for that day. Still love it, though. Very elegant.
I have problems correctly pronouncing other words, but I’m okay with all of those. There are a lot of mediocre words out there.
I do love bulbous.
Rotund is a favorite as well.
Yeah, that is an excellent word. It may very well someday end up on my top five.
I love the word flummoxed and I used it in my last REO article. I’ve read several things Ben has written on his favorite words and they are all GOLD!
You too have been a good source of word material in your articles. There have been many that I knew about but you made me more familiar with.
I confess sometimes I struggle with the line between using words that make writing creative and sounding pretentious. As I read through my Creed 2 review (that I know you are avoiding until you watch it) I think I could have sounded less “big word”y. Though everything I said was just trying to make it fun to read.
Another confession: For our Bible Character Top 10, which has been read like 8,000 times at this point, I looked up synonyms for “caustic” to describe our debates on that bracket and the best word I saw was “Scurrilous”. I had never heard it and I used it. I’m sure it sounded pretentious but it was such a good word. I saw it in a Gospel Coalition or Desiring God article just last week.
“Flummoxed” has tickled me since about 2010 or 2011 when my brothers were texting during a football game of our favorite team and our normally stout defense was playing poorly and Ashley said, “I’m flummoxed”. I then used that word in every text conversation for weeks.
1) mullygrubs
2) flibbertigibbet
3)spurious
4) ubiquitous
5) gregarious
I remember when I was a kid thinking “flibbertigibbet” was a word my mom just made up. Then I watched “The Sound of Music” and everything changed forever.
Spatula, rutabaga, and indifatigible.
Whippersnapper is also a good word.