Beauty, so the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. And my eye certainly beholds some words to be more beautiful than others.<\/p>\n
Beautiful<\/em> is, itself, a beautiful word. So too is umbriferous<\/em> (providing shade).<\/p>\n And when a friend told me recently that she had been out shopping for girlish fripperies<\/em>, I knew immediately that it must have been a pleasant experience. How could shopping for fripperies be anything but?<\/p>\n William Zinsser, a man whose knowledge of words is not to be sneezed at, recently suggested oscillate<\/em>, lapidary<\/em>, and filigree<\/em> as some of the words that he finds pleasing. (And I don\u2019t think he will mind if we read pleasing as a synonym for beautiful.)<\/p>\n Of course different folk have different criteria. According to a survey carried out by The British Council, the top five most beautiful English words among new learners of English are mother<\/em>, passion<\/em>, smile<\/em>, love<\/em>, and eternity<\/em>. Passion and eternity I could just about vote for. The others \u2026 I\u2019m not so sure about.<\/p>\n Epiphany<\/em>, opulent<\/em> and quintessential<\/em> score well in some surveys. So do cinnamon<\/em>, cashmere<\/em>, and soliloquy<\/em>.<\/p>\n And then somewhere near the other end of the scale, we have mondayising<\/em>.<\/p>\n Fantasising<\/em> and harmonising<\/em> are quite pleasant words. Mondayising (carrying public holidays that fall on a weekend over to the following Monday) is not.<\/p>\n But, as clunky as mondayising is, there is worse to be found in one of the definitions of postmodernism. Here is that definition:<\/p>\n Postmodernism<\/strong>: a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the problematization of objective truth.<\/p>\n I have no idea what that means. But I do know that problematization<\/em> is one very ugly word. And I nominate problematization as July\u2019s Ugly Word of the Month.<\/p>\n Which word would you nominate? \u2013 Jack Scrivano<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beauty, so the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. And my eye certainly beholds some words to be more beautiful than others. Beautiful is, itself, a beautiful word. So too is umbriferous (providing shade). And when a … Continue reading