The Amazing Fun of Words

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky.

I love words. I like the way they sound. Words like tinkle, slither, clap, pop, sizzle, squeak. Did you know they are actually called something that doesn’t sound like what it is at all? Or maybe it does and I just don’t know how to pronounce it. Onomatopoeia. That’s one hard word to spell or say, but the words it describes are easy to say. Crash, boom, bang, tweet, croak. Well, you get the idea.

I think words are amazing. When you think about how the alphabet has only 26 letters and then think about how many zillion words those 26 letters can make, that is amazing. Well, I haven’t counted up the words in the dictionary, but I know there are a bunch of them. Dad says we make new words all the time and that after a while those words get in the dictionary too.

Dad likes words the same as I do. Words are sort of his business since he’s a newspaper editor and more important, a preacher. He says he likes the words that are in the Bible best. Those are the words that matter the most, he says, but he likes the words he uses to share the news here in Hollyhill too. Of course, he never has much news to share here in Hollyhill where hardly anything interesting ever happens unless you like to know about the turnip Mr. Hopkins pulled out in his garden that looks like a horse. Or maybe it was a dog.

Who cares! But Wes says pictures like that sell papers and we need to sell papers so we can buy something at the store to go along with all the garden produce the church people give Dad every week. I mean there is just so much cabbage and zucchini a person can eat. I can’t even sneak it off my plate and give it to my dog, Zeb. He won’t eat it! Smart dog.

But back to those words I love. I want to learn more of them. I’m always finding neat sounding words. How about susurrus? That’s a whispering, murmuring, rustling sound. The susurrus of the creek was soothing, peaceful.

And what about perfidious? Doesn’t that exactly describe somebody ready to stick a knife in your back or failing that, start some bad story about you? In that first book about us here in Hollyhill, Scent of Lilacs, plenty of prefidious stuff went on that left some of us in trepidation of what might happen next. But we had resilience and made it through in spite of how some folks wanted to stick their proboscis into our business.

Okay, so maybe procoscis isn’t really a matching word for nose. Except an elephant’s nose. But you can have fun with words. People have been having fun with words since words were first invented. Or maybe uttered. Do you think the Lord taught Adam his first words? Can you imagine Adam naming everything? He had to have the Lord’s help to come up with some of those names. Like giraffe or cantalope or frog. It had to be fun naming everything.

You can find out about that in Genesis 2:19-20. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name therof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.

Can you imagine getting to do that. Plus, Adam had to have a terrific memory in order to remember all those names. Dad said the Lord must have helped Adam figure it all out. Dad says with the Lord helping you, a person can do some amazing things. Things you wouldn’t ever think you could. So I’m hoping the Lord will help me learn all kinds of new words and will help me know how to put them together to write things people will want to read. Not just stories in our newspaper but someday books and stories that make people laugh and cry and read with flashlights under the covers the way I sometimes read stories other people write.

So, I aim to learn a few new words each day and try them out on my tongue. Some words  tickle your tongue and are just so fun to say. Like discombobulated or punctilious or bubble or flummox or gobblydegook or shenanigans. I could go on and on until you would be ready to skedaddle.

I guess it’s time for me to skedaddle until next time. Dad will be telling me to put up the dictionary and turn out my light. I just know words will dance in my head all night long.

What are some words that you like to say? Or any words that are onomatopoeia?