The Beauty of Words
Have you ever notice how some words just role off the tongue with the greatest of ease? Some words are so beautiful and sweet sounding, they almost sound sacred, like they should be whispered. To me, the most beautiful words I can think of are the names of many of the cities in California. Looking over a map I see names like Cucamonga, Rialto, Temecula, Escondido, Yucaipa, Cabazon, Calimesa, Indio, Hisperia, Loma Linda, Astascadero, Tulare, Visalia, Manteca, Sacramento, Petaluma, Ukiah, Sonoma, and Tehama. These all sound either Mexican or Native American, which is a testimony to the beauty of those languages.
Other languages aside, have you ever noticed how different facets of our society seem to "own" certain sets of words. For instance,"education" has the ology words like psychology, urology, technology, and biology. Every ology word seems to require education. Other groups have their buzz words. New age speak uses words like synchronicity, paradigm, and synergy. Christians like to use rapture, covenant, and hallelujah. Environmentalist's use buzz words like endangered and sustainable. Politicians like to use buzz phrases, sets of words that have a dash between the words, like tax-and-spend, faith-based-initiatives, partial-birth, and pro-choice.
I've always appreciated nice sounding words. We all have our favorites, you know, the words you like to say slowly or even repeat. Words like "geometry" or "Sasquatch" or "debilitating". Some of my favorite words are words I can't use because I'm not gay. I wish I could offer somebody a "libation" when I'm serving up drinks, or talk about what a "travesty" something is, or how somebody is acting like a "savage", or how I'm feeling a bit "trepidatious", but if I did, they would just think to themselves, "wow, I didn't know Joe was gay."
Then there's the portmanteau words, words that combine two words into one for two different meanings. Years back I heard of a client at the Work Training center getting upset over something he was trying to do and yelling out, "I'm so pissapointed!" Great word, huh? Sometimes I give people a "guesstamite" of what a job is going to cost. An "adornament" is something that adorns and is an ornament. If your lonely and alone, you are "alonely". I've made up a few good ones over the years, mostly on the spot, just can't think of them now.
Besides city names, some of the sweetest sounding words, often taken from nature, are assigned to streets. Chico has a few nice ones like Esplanade, Vallembrosa, Ceonothus, Cohasset, and Verbeena. Plants and trees and most things in nature probably have beautiful sounds attached to their names in just about every language. In San Bernardino, where I grew up, there are street names like Muscupiabe, Muscott, Del Rosa, and Sepulveda. Here again, a lot of Native American sounding words. Look at the beauty of the sounds given to colors. Blue, violet, umber, yellow, beige, maroon, sienna, to name a few.
Sometimes when I'm sitting alone in a coffee shop, I will get out my pad and just start writing down words that I like. I don't know why, there's something about the vibrational quality of certain words and just writing them down or saying them inspires me. Acclamation, scenario, visualization, augmentation, revelation, aquarium, calligraphy, enhancement, fluorescent, silhouette, embellish....you see what I mean? Just reading these words opens up something inside. The magic of words must have something to do with the vibrational aspect of the sounds connected to each word. In their essence, the vibration stirs feeling and emotion. I think the Indians must have been in touch with something sacred and deep when they came up with words like Tehachapi, Mojave, and Sequoia. I'll bet there's a flow to their languages, the way the words ease into and complete each other. English is probably a very abrupt language being that it is a melding of so many other languages. But here I go again, talking about things I really know little about. To borrow a phrase from a fellow blogger...."just thinkin out loud".
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