Bring on the flowers

I love words. It is the sound of them I particularly enjoy. Some words are so delicious saying them is like eating something particularly flavoursome like a dried fig or a guava or a tasty curry. Words like sanctimonious and parsimonious and pharisaical. The sound of those three words to me instantly bring to mind a certain type of person that should be instantly dodged once identified.


Then there are words like belligerent that describe exactly what they sound like. The belligerent bull pawed the ground angrily before breaking into a menacing trot towards the picnic goers seated on a rug.

I have always love words. However, some of my earlier efforts to use the gems of the English language were dismissed with the comment of 'too flowery' by the teacher I had for five years at primary school. That is rather ironical considering he was the one who first drew my attention to words like belligerent and benevolent.

Regretably the problem with words like parsimonious et al is they are a bit poncy and not in common use. One needs to be careful in whose company one uses words like that otherwise one can appear ostentatious.

This is exactly the problem I have when I occasionally use one of my favourite phrases epistemologically curious. I picked it up in my university travels from the writing of Donald Macedo. I interpret it as meaning to love learning and knowledge and sometimes although I fight the temptation I can not help but use it to describe someone. I always wish I had kept my mouth shut.

You might conclude in my line of work that having a love of words would be essential. Au contraire. When writing news stories I have to use language a twelve year old would understand. There goes another irony I suppose.