I’ve found myself profoundly inspired by phonosemantics. In one stroke, it’s opened up a whole new way of looking at language — something I didn’t really think was possible for me after studying linguistics for sixteen years…
It would be like finding out that my wife actually has another job, house, and life that I never knew about. Except I’ve only been married to my wife for nine years. (Yowch! That reminds me: my anniversary is coming up in three days!…)
So I decided that I’d chronicle my exploration of this new side of language, and give you a chance to come along for the ride.
This is a different kind of Word of the Day.
Most Word-of-the-Day services offer words that most people have never heard of, in order to build vocabulary. Words like moil or redound or inveigle.
Fine words, no doubt, but they don’t live in people’s hearts.
I want to offer words you already know — simple words like god and sun and home. Words that are part of the furniture of your mind, the vocabulary of your subconscious, the words in your heart. You’ll read about where they come from and what they mean, just like in a regular word-of-the-day, but you’ll also read about how their sounds contribute to their meaning in subtle ways (phonosemantics), related words, and their place in the universal subconscious.
I want to offer, not just a word, but a guided tour of a tiny piece of the human experience.
I’ve set up the WOD as a separate blog, so you can subscribe to this Word of the Day service in a feed reader or via email.
Check it out here!
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One thing Kara-Leah mentions is that she wishes I had a Top Ten list of popular blog posts available to help her navigate deeper into the site. Until recently I actually did have such a list out — in fact, I had half a dozen lists of popular blog posts, sorted by month. However, for whatever reason, no one ever clicked on them! So last week I took them down, and I decided to rely more on the “More about…” links at the bottom of each article.
May-day, season surpassing!