In Other Words

Bedroom.

Shakespeare invented more than 1500 words or turns of phrase. He gave us words to describe the majesty of the world, like gloomy, radiance, and moonbeam and the simple and ordinary things, like eyeball and bedroom. What is interesting to me about this fact, beyond linguistic prowess or creative genius, is the simplicity of how he created them. For the most part, it was through tinkering, mashing words up against one another, turning nouns into verbs or adding a suffix, it was word play, really, and a necessity for someone working within the confines of pentameters and such. But it is a reminder, isn't it? Of the value of tinkering, the testing of limits, and the trying of new things. Today it reminds me to use all of my building blocks and all of my devices. Maybe I can make something entirely new.

Picture:
www.rubygonewild.com

Of Friends and Lovers

Kith.

Sometimes words fall out of common, or even uncommon usage. Often this linguistic loss is barely noted by the general public, with our propensity for the formation and favor of new words. And then there are times that I find myself searching, looking for an adequate expression of some thing that shouldn't take five words to describe but always seems to. It makes me wish for a reverse dictionary, in which you could look up your meaning and find the word. Sometimes, I stumble across it anyway, and discover a new or forgotten term that satisfies the searching. Today this word is kith, as in, "of kith and kin." Kith is the collection of our unrelated family, our chosen kin. It is a good word, and a good reminder of the important role that long-term friends and companions have in our lives, kith, the people who stand by us, who lift us up in times of need, make us laugh, share our dreams, our highs and lows, not because they were born to it, but because they choose it.

The Word A Day Website:
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/

Picture:
www.rubygonewild.com