"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. " -Helen Keller

Friday, April 29, 2011

Y, Oh Y

I like words. There is nothing better than a rich, descriptive passage from a book that grabs you and pulls you into the world you are reading about. So, I thought about words when I was trying to decide what to write about for Yday. Well, initially I thought about writing about yarn and the sheer delight of plunging your hand into a bin full of lovely colors and feeling the caress of the bamboo and silk yarn as it plays across your fingers but, I decided that wouldn't interest anyone except other crafting nuts. So, words it is.

I went searching for some new and unusual Y words to add to my vocabulary and I found a site called The Phrontistery. Per the site's header, it features obscure words and vocabulary resources. There are enough unusual, different words from all the corners of the earth to keep a *logophile happy for years. I found words like

yabba - large Jamaican earthenware or wooden vessel
yaffingale - green woodpecker
yahrzeit - Jewish remembrance of the first anniversary of someone's death
yapok - an amphibious opossum of South America
yarborough - hand of cards containing no card above nine
yarnwindle - tool for winding yarn into a ball
ylem - in alchemy, substance from which the elements developed
yonderly - mentally or emotionally distant; absent-minded
Do you have any favorite unusual words? They don't have to start with y.
*logopihile - noun a lover of words

4 comments:

Jen said...

hmm depends...did you know that me" is who, "who" is he, "he" is she,and "dog" means fish, and "rock" means soft in Hebrew? hmmm. makes you want to rethink a lot of things

Dorothy said...

Mendacious.
Soporific.
Insouciance.
Love them.

Kakunaa said...

Bugaboo. Conundrum (I like the way it rolls off the tongue). Crepuscular.

Kakunaa said...

Bugaboo. Conundrum (I like the way it rolls off the tongue). Crepuscular.