Favourite Word?

[CarpathianMuffin]

Twatbasket's fun to say. Nonsensical, a little hard to say, and hardly usable in everyday conversation, but fun nonetheless.
For real words, avuncular is up there.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Ocean

Others:
Sepulcher
Bathysphere
Luminescence
Quarry
Vigor
Allah
Theophilus
Evangelion

 

[putowtin]

Bollock's is my favourite at the moment

Others on the list would be,

spotty dog
tru dat
fuck

 

[purf]

frolicking
Konglomerat (german)

 

[TehChef]

If by sound:
"Elegance" has always been one of my favourites. The sounds seem to really fit the concept to me.

If by "wait, there's actually a unique word for that?":
"Fenestrate". Every kid who's heard of the Defenestration of Prague knows that that "defenestration" is one of the better weird words lying around in the dustier corners of English, but "fenestration" is just absurd. Being thrown out of a window is one thing and we see it happen often enough in fiction alone to make the word slightly reasonable, but how often do you see people thrown into windows.

Eh, not quite. Fenestration actually refers to windows, as in the placement and structure thereof; not of throwing people into them. Likewise, if something is fenestrated, it has windows or openings, usually many of them.

OnT: I like the word rhotacism. It means the excessive use of the letter "R". And I also like the word bifurcate.

Eh, not quite. Fenestration actually also refers to throwing people in through windows (pretty obviously a backformation from "defenestration"). It's an absurdly rare usage, somewhat unsurprising given how rare "defenestration" already is, but it definitely exists.

Really? Then that's a usage I've never heard before. So as not to seem like a smart-ass, I checked it against dictionary.com and they had no usage of it as a verb. I'm not trying to quibble, but it must be incredibly rare. Besides, I would think the verb form would be to fenestrate, not fenestration. The latter just sounds like an adjective or noun.

Preface: It sounds like you might not need this, but it never hurts to repeat it for others (so if you don't need this, don't take my exasperation personally). Also, I need an image macro for this or something given how often I have to say it here.

Dictionaries are reference works. Dictionaries do not dictate what is and isn't a word or even what is and isn't a word in current use. They are often wrong. Treating a dictionary as definitive is like arguing that something doesn't exist because there isn't an entry for it in the encyclopedia. Dictionaries aren't unimpeachable either, they're filled with mistakes. In fact, the grammar employed by most English dictionaries is about two hundred years old. Modern linguists tend to find modern dictionaries embarassing. Similarly, people are so poorly educated on grammar (if you think you were taught grammar well in school, you weren't, you were taught grammar that's two-hundred years behind modern understandinging well in school) and language in general that they end up thinking of the dictionary as some sort of Language Bible.

More to the point, the usage is relatively rare and, this is sort of a wild guess, probably fairly new. You get it as a backformation from "defenestration": people hear "fenestration" without knowing what it means, they know what "defenestration" means from a history class earlier in life, and they assume that the meaning of "defenestration" is completely compositional. This is a really normal way for new words/new meanings of old words to enter languages. As for the syntactic category, that depends on what you mean by "noun" or "verb". "Fenestration" with this meaning is definitely derived from a "fenestrate" with a similar meaning, clearly a verb, with a nominal affix attached. Whether you want to say that it's a "noun" or a "verb" depends on whether you want to refer to the word as a modified verbal root or as a monolithic affixed nominal form.

While I understand that dictionaries are only reference works, it does make sense for them to be used as some sort of standard. I mean, if the dictionary says that a word is used one way, and this is the way that %99.99 of people use it, then why should it make sense to use it another way. In that case, the dictionary is being used as a standard. If we don't have something to use as some sort of standard, then language can devolve into nonsensicality. It's a hard line to draw, between the organic nature of language and the rigid standards of meaning. I think there should be some standard as to how we use our words, but also allow for the flexibility of creating and changing words. Honestly, unless you can point out another source, the dictionary is the best we have.

Also, why are modern linguists embarrassed by dictionaries? And how should grammar be taught? I happen to enjoy grammar and language, so if you could point out some sources, I'd appreciate it. As for "fenestration" as a verb, I was merely pointing out the fact that verbs generally take the form of "to X". So, "to fenestrate" sounds more verb-like than fenestration. While I can think of one example of verbs ending in -tion that take the passive mode of speech, tintinnabulation, the vast majority of verbs take the active mode of speech. I guess I'm asking why "fenestration" should enter the lexicon as a verb instead of "to fenestrate"?

(Also, I'm editing my quote because I made an embarrassing syntactical error.)

 

[CactiComplex]

Delectable (I tend to apply it to women more than I do food. Still works).

Balls, which is the closest I get to swearing when I'm not enraged.

Searing. I don't know why.

(captcha: siowe word)

 

[FamoFunk]

Tedious.

I love that word, it can sum up so many things in what can sometimes feel like a strong, harsh way.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

While I understand that dictionaries are only reference works, it does make sense for them to be used as some sort of standard. I mean, if the dictionary says that a word is used one way, and this is the way that %99.99 of people use it, then why should it make sense to use it another way.

The problem being that all modern dictionaries have incredible biases toward past over present usage. Beyond that, there's also the question of regional and other dialectal variation. Finally, there's the largest issue, which is that dictionary editors tend to be "English experts" (experts on works IN the English language, not the language itself) rather than language experts. The issue isn't that it's not sensible to use the word the same way most people do, it's that dictionaries do not even come close to correctly documenting the current usage of all (or even a decent subset of) English words.

In that case, the dictionary is being used as a standard. If we don't have something to use as some sort of standard, then language can devolve into nonsensicality.

Actually, this is completely faulty reasoning. Think about it - how would this ever happen? All changes in language are moves to make language more clear or more convenient. Otherwise, why would the change be adopted by the population? All joking about how "irrational" people really are aside, language is spoken by rational agents trying to maximize communicative efficacy. In essence, your goal in using language is to communicate something as clearly as necessary to achieve your goals and to do it as lazily as possible. Typically, there's a tension between laziness and clarity, but the system self-regulates for the best possible outcome.

It's a hard line to draw, between the organic nature of language and the rigid standards of meaning. I think there should be some standard as to how we use our words, but also allow for the flexibility of creating and changing words. Honestly, unless you can point out another source, the dictionary is the best we have.

This idea about rigidity of meaning is an extremely, extremely common one and is based on some very mistaken notions. For one, you have no hope of actually restricting semantic change to any meaningful degree. There are contexts where people will (misguidedly) conform to the dictionary, like in a dispute over the meaning of a relatively obscure word, but it has essentially no impact on general language change. And this is probably fine. Plenty of languages have no published dictionaries and they don't really lose any communicative power. A dictionary is good for getting a better guess at what an unfamiliar word means, but you can also just ask someone familiar with it or circumlocute. In fact, I'd warrant that if you had some way to reasonably measure it, you'd find that communicative efficacy is improved in places without a belief in dictionaries serving as a standardization device.

To put it another, more dramatic way, what you're suggesting is akin to suggesting that if the population listed for a country in an encyclopedia is found to be overestimated, the encyclopedia shouldn't be changed, we should adhere to it as a standard and kill those extra people.

To put it another, shorter way, it just never really makes sense to make anything the "standard" for a natural phenomenon (just so we're clear, language is a natural phenomenon).

Also, why are modern linguists embarrassed by dictionaries? And how should grammar be taught? I happen to enjoy grammar and language, so if you could point out some sources, I'd appreciate it.

Dictionaries use terms that simply don't make sense and they also say things that are patently false. The term "adverb" is probably the most famous example of an absurdly heterogenous category being treated as a single type of thing, but there are countless others. The pronunciation guides of most American dictionaries are absolutely terrible, often making use of hacked-together phonetic alphabets that lack several English sounds or make distinctions that aren't contrastive in English (a problem compounded by the fact that different dialects of English make different phonological distinctions). Even those that don't are full of mistakes in the actual pronunciations listed.

When you turn to meaning, you have even bigger problems. There still isn't really any agreement over how people categorise things psychologically (though we can be sure it isn't the "necessary and sufficient qualities" of a dictionary entry), so meanings of open-class content words like "bird" or "dog" are essentially impossible to properly define, though I don't think that's a big issue. There's also the problem of circular recursive definition, but again, not a huge problem so far as I can see. The much larger problem is closed-class function words like "of" or "more", which are often downright terrible in dictionaries. Look at a word like "that", specifically in the sort of "linking use". Dictionaries list this as a "conjunction". This is embarassing. If it's a conjunction, it should be able to appear in similar structural environments as other conjunctions. You have things like "Bill and John are leaving for the store in an hour." and "Bill or John are leaving for the store in an hour.", but you never have something like "Bill that John are leaving for the store in an hour.". Saying that "that" and "and" belong to the same syntactic category (colloquially "part of speech") could not possibly be more wrong. You get even worse problems when you move from the syntactic mistakes to the semantic ones.

If you actually want to learn more about real grammar, PM me and I can point you toward some introductory articles/books.

As for "fenestration" as a verb, I was merely pointing out the fact that verbs generally take the form of "to X". So, "to fenestrate" sounds more verb-like than fenestration.

The "verbs take the form 'to VERB'" thing is actually the result of antiquated grammar teaching. Essentially, the infinitival form of a verb in English, for independent reasons, can only appear in a clause with "to" ("to" and verb tense alternate in English). In some other languages, most notably Latin, there is no equivalent of this "to". Since "to" tends to appear next to the verb in English, several hundred years ago some people who weren't thinking even remotely deeply decided that the "to" was "part of the infinitive". This is why you get the "don't split an infinitive" prescription despite the fact that it sounds fine to quite literally all naive speakers of English. So in short, "to" actually has pretty much nothing to do with the verb.

While I can think of one example of verbs ending in -tion that take the passive mode of speech, tintinnabulation, the vast majority of verbs take the active mode of speech. I guess I'm asking why "fenestration" should enter the lexicon as a verb instead of "to fenestrate"?

I'm not sure what you mean by "active" and "passive mode" here since it doesn't conform to any technical or traditional grammar description that I'm familiar with. I'm also not sure why "defenestration" wouldn't be a verb if "tintinnabulation" would be (since the "verb" form of "tintinnabulation" would then be "tintinnabulate", an extraordinarily rare word, though I imagine you could find it in some dictionaries since it's pretty old). My point was that "defenestration" is composed of (at least) a root and an affix, "defenestrate" + "tion" (it's probably possible to further decompose the word, but that doesn't matter for this). The root "defenestrate" is verbal. The affix is one that derives nominals from verbals. So you can say that "defenestrate" is a derived nominal (a noun), or you can say that it's a nominalized verb. The latter is probably the less common usage, but, in a way, both make sense and I've seen both used in different contexts many times.

This is a cheap shot, but what does your standard for the English language have to say about "syntactical"?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Facetious. All the vowels are in alphabetical order.

 

[The Apothecarry]

Antidisestablishmentarianism. It's a word. SUCK IT, HATERS.

 

[Gladiateher]

Prostitute really rolls of the tongue nicely.

 

[dancinginfernal]

Fortuitous.

It's just fun for me to say, and I actually became a fan of it from Mass Effect. The way Lorik Qui'in says it just makes me feel giddy for some peculiar reason.

 

[Nechti_Visara]

Pulchritudinous, eviscerate, and poppycock. And occasionally ucalegon.

 

[OptimisticPessimist]

"ampersands" Just say it. You'll see what I mean.

 

[TonyVonTonyus]

Hobbledehoy or Yon

 

[captaincabbage]

My word of the month has been 'Trepidatious' so far.

I seem to have been using it more and more lately, since it's just a really good descriptive word.

 

[infohippie]

Syzygy. It's one of the few English words with no vowels and is worth approximately one bajillion points in Scrabble.

Edit: Ooh, and "Brobdingnagian." It means really really big and you get a nice puzzled look from other people when you use it.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

"Shenanigans" I use that word all the time at work, it makes all the bullshit at work seem hilarious and masks my utter disgust. Besides it's really fun to say.

Fuck.

It's so versatile!

Oh yes it is, it's even fun to put in the middle of words, it's so fan-fucking-tastic!

 

[Stevo95]

Scrotaganal, something strange but awsome

 

[jumb]

Ointment.

Makes me giggle every time I say it out loud.